The French woman had been traveling in Tarsus on Turkey's Mediterranean Coast, an area not believed affected by the flu.

The 32-year-old woman was hospitalized in Montpellier in southern France on Saturday, a ministry statement said. An initial flu test was negative, as was a second round of more thorough tests for signs of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in her nose and throat, the statement said.

Dozens Have Been Tested

It was the first time the ministry announced a case of suspected bird flu in European France. Last year three people on France's Indian Ocean island of Reunion were thought to have been infected with the H5N1 strain, but the suspicions proved unfounded.

While it was the first such case to be publicized, the Health Ministry acknowledged that several dozen people in France have been tested for bird flu. All the tests were carried out on people with flu symptoms who had recently visited affected areas, said a Health Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

No case of a human infected with bird flu has been confirmed in France.

Government Monitoring Suspected Cases

The woman in the latest case returned from Turkey on Friday and was hospitalized Saturday for flu-like symptoms with respiratory problems, the ministry statement said. She had been traveling in Tarsus on Turkey's Mediterranean Coast, an area not believed affected by the flu.

Given the symptoms and her travel history, the National Institute for Sanitary Monitoring declared it to be a case of suspected bird flu, in accordance with the government's new anti-bird flu program.

Experts Fear Virus Could Mutate

Twenty-one people have tested positive for H5N1 in Turkey and four children have died. Turkey has reported possible H5N1 outbreaks in poultry in 26 provinces.

The virus has a limited ability to jump from poultry to people, and there is no evidence yet to suggest it can spread from human to human, although experts fear the virus could mutate into a form spread easily among humans and trigger a pandemic. It has killed at least 79 people in east Asia and Turkey since 2003.