Channel NewsAsia 23 Jan 08;
HANOI - Vietnamese health officials confirmed Wednesday that a 32-year-old man from a northern province died of H5N1 bird flu last week, raising the country's death toll from the virus to 48.
"The National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology has confirmed to us that he has tested positive for the H5N1 virus," Nguyen Huy Nga, director of the health ministry's preventive health department, told AFP.
The Lao Dong (Labour) and Tuoi Tre (Youth) dailies earlier said the man had eaten one of several chickens that had died near his house in the mountainous province of Tuyen Quang.
Communist Vietnam reported its last human death from bird flu in December when the virus killed a four-year-old boy, the 47th death since late 2003.
Vietnam has the world's second highest bird flu death toll after Indonesia.
The national Animal Health Department meanwhile reported that the poultry outbreak in Tuyen Quang had been confirmed by the National Steering Committee for Avian Influenza Prevention and Control.
The H5N1 virus was confirmed in three of 11 poultry samples taken in the province's Son Duong district, where the latest victim lived, according to Animal Health Department chief Bui Quang Anh.
Authorities had since culled poultry and disinfected the area.
Three Vietnamese provinces are now on the official bird flu watchlist, after northern Thai Nguyen and southern Tra Vinh also reported cases among birds within the past 21 days.
The Tien Phong (Pioneer) newspaper also reported that tests in central Quang Binh province had found that over 1,000 ducklings from a flock of 1,700 unvaccinated birds died of H5N1 early this month.
Northern Vietnam's cold winter weather favours the spread of respiratory diseases because immune systems are weakened and people tend to spend more time indoors together, experts warn.
Vietnam's Health Ministry has cautioned the public only to buy poultry of clear origins ahead of the traditional Tet Lunar New Year festival in February, when poultry sales and consumption are expected to rise sharply.
The World Health Organisation has now confirmed 351 human cases of H5N1 worldwide, of whom 219 have died.
The virus is mainly an animal disease, but scientists fear it could mutate to easily jump from human to human, sparking a deadly global pandemic.- AFP /ls
