~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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Vietnam confirms 16th death from bird flu

HANOI - Vietnamese health officials on Saturday said a 12-year-old boy who died earlier this week tested positive for bird flu, bringing Vietnam's death toll from the disease to 16. The boy was admitted to a hospital in the southern Tay Ninh province on March 13 and died two days later, said a doctor at Tay Ninh hospital on condition of anonymity

On Friday, tests showed the boy had died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu, said a doctor at the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City on condition of anonymity. The announcement came just two days after officials announced that they planned to declare Vietnam free of bird flu by the end of the month.

The death is the first reported human case of bird flu in more than a month in Vietnam. Twenty-four people have now died of bird flu in Asia - 16 in Vietnam and eight in Thailand. The disease has been reported in 10 countries and territories in Asia but has spread to humans only in Vietnam and Thailand. It has devastated the region's poultry industry, forcing farmers to cull some 100 million birds.

The doctor in Tay Ninh, 100 kilometers (62 miles) northwest of Ho Chi Minh City, said the boy suffered from diarrhea and high fever when he was admitted and developed a serious lung infection on Sunday before dying Monday morning. She said the boy's family had eaten sick chickens about five days before the boy became ill. The Pasteur Institute, one of only three places in the country that can test for bird flu, said it will send a team of medical experts to the area next week to investigate. Vietnam's last reported bird flu death was on Feb. 18 when a four-year-old boy died in the Central Highland province of Lam Dong.

Health and animal experts have repeatedly warned that the Asia bird flu crisis isn't over yet, and urged Asian nations to be cautious about declaring an end to the epidemic. On Friday, the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in a joint statement that they were willing to send experts to evaluate the problem. "In countries such as Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand, further outbreaks could still flare up,'' the groups said. "The virus could spread again within and between countries.''

On Saturday, World Health Organization spokesman Peter Cordingley said the latest case had not yet been confirmed but repeated WHO's position that bird flu remains a threat. "WHO still believes that it's far too early to start talking about an all-clear in Vietnam, or anywhere else that has the virus. We share the view that the virus is still in the environment. The risk of a new flare up is always present,'' he said in a phone interview from Manila. Thailand declared itself free of the virus earlier this month but was forced to backtrack days later when officials announced new cases in chickens in the northern province of Chiang Rai.

Fifty-seven of Vietnam's 64 provinces had reported bird flu outbreaks. But the government earlier this month said it had contained the disease because no new outbreaks had been reported since Feb. 26. More than 38 million fowl, or about 15 percent of the country's poultry stock, either died or were destroyed in mass culls to contain the disease. The Rome-based FAO has been warning affected countries not to restock flocks too quickly to avoid new flare-ups.

The Associated Press - March 20, 2004.