JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- An Indonesian man who contracted bird flu after preparing an infected chicken died Thursday, a Health Ministry official said, lifting the worldwide death toll to 200.

The 33-year-old plantation worker from central Sumatra had been hospitalized for almost 10 days with a high fever, coughing and breathing difficulties. Tests confirmed he had the virulent H5N1 strain of the virus.

The ministry earlier said he was recovering, but his condition deteriorated unexpectedly and he died Thursday, said Arman Zubair, an official at the Health Ministry's monitoring post for bird flu.

Before his death, 199 people had died out of 327 known infections worldwide since bird flu began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in 2003, according to the World Health Organization.

Indonesia has reported 106 people infected with H5N1, and 85 of them have died -- more than 40 percent of the recorded fatalities worldwide.

Last month, the Indonesian resort island of Bali reported its first two fatal cases.

The virus remains hard for people to catch, but experts fear it will mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans, possibly sparking a pandemic.