JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Bird flu killed its third victim in as many days in Indonesia and ravaged poultry stocks in Tibet and India on Wednesday, as the virus picked up steam across Asia.

The death of the 32-year-old man raised Indonesia's human toll to 101 — accounting for nearly half the worldwide total. The man died in the capital Tuesday, three days after being hospitalized.

It was not immediately clear how he contracted the H5N1 virus, said Health Ministry official Toto Haryanto, though one of his neighbors was known to be a pigeon breeder.

"We are not sure if any of those birds were sickened by the H5N1 virus," he said. "We're still investigating."

In southwestern Tibet, a poultry farm was quarantined after an outbreak of the disease killed 1,000 birds, agriculture officials reported Wednesday. More than 13,000 other poultry were killed to prevent its spread.

In India, the virus spread in three districts of West Bengal state, where culling was under way and more than 129,000 poultry birds have died, said Animal Resource Development Minister Anisur Rahaman.

Health workers have killed nearly 2.5 million at-risk birds and were clearing areas within 3 miles of infection sites, said Rahaman. No human infections have been recorded.

Skittish officials in neighboring Bangladesh ordered the halt of all egg and poultry imports from India.

Bird flu typically flares during the winter months, and a number of Asian nations have recently reported fresh outbreaks in poultry, from India to China to Thailand. Health officials said it was essential that governments step up surveillance to prevent its spread, especially ahead of next week's Lunar New Year, when massive numbers of people and poultry will be on the move.

"The more you see it in poultry, the more chance there is that we will see human cases," said Gregory Hartl, World Health Organization spokesman in Geneva.

The virus that began plaguing Asian poultry stocks in late 2003 remains hard for people to catch, but scientists worry it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a pandemic.

At least 223 people have died worldwide. Most cases have been linked to contact with infected birds, but scientists believe limited human-to-human transmission has occurred a few times among blood relatives who had close contact.

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Associated Press writers Margie Mason in Hanoi, Vietnam, and Chris Bodeen in Beijing contributed to this report.