ISLAMABAD -- Two people, including a doctor, have died from one of the deadliest forms of hemorrhagic fever and more than 20 others have been quarantined in northern Pakistan, AFP quoted officials as saying Tuesday.

Doctor Farzana Altaf, 24, died on Monday at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad of Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever, they said.

Farzana, a medical officer at the Holy Family Hospital in nearby Rawalpindi, was infected while handling an 18 year-old girl who was brought to her hospital two weeks ago.

The girl, a resident of Bagh Town in the Pakistani-administered part of Kashmir, died of excessive bleeding last week.

Some 20 other hospital staff including doctors and nurses have been placed in quarantine, said doctor Tahir Sharif, the assistant medical superintendent at Holy Family Hospital.

He added that at least seven of the ill staffers were receiving prophylactic treatment.

Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever is a tick-borne virus stemming from livestock which is transmitted into open cuts and sores. It causes massive bleeding through the nose, mouth and ears and can lead to organ failure.

The extremely contagious disease can be passed on by contact with the blood and other body fluids of a patient. Initial symptoms include headaches, fevers and vomiting.

Farzana is the first doctor to have died of the disease in Pakistan since 1974. It claimed two victims in the city of Quetta last year and was responsible for 18 deaths in Baluchistan Province in 2000.