Bangladesh's Health Ministry says the nation's first human case of the H5N1 strain of bird flu has been detected.

The Directorate General of Health Services statement says a child was infected by the virus in January.

Villagers react after chickens of their poultry farm in Gazipur, near Dhaka, were found infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus March 23,2007. Bangladesh said on Thursday the H5N1 bird flu virus had been detected in poultry near the capital Dhaka. REUTERS/Shamim Noor (BANGLADESH)

The statement Thursday did not give the child's name, age, or other details, but said the child was recovering after treatment.

The statement says the case was diagnosed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Bangladesh has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of birds in recent months after the H5N1 virus was detected in the impoverished South Asian nation last year.