Bird flu kills Vietnam girl
HANOI - A 13-year-old girl has died from bird flu in southern Vietnam where tests are under way to check if
the virus has also infected a 25-year-old woman from Cambodia who is seriously ill, doctors say.
The girl's death brought to 11 the death toll in Vietnam from the deadly H5N1 poultry virus in recent weeks.
A doctor at the General Hospital in Kien Giang province bordering Cambodia told Reuters on Saturday that the
25-year-old woman was brought in on Friday morning with a high fever.
"Her condition is critical, she is on a respirator now," said the doctor, adding that samples had been sent to the
Pasteur Institute in southern Ho Chi Minh City for testing and results were expected in two to three days.
"Cambodian people often come over to our hospitals here to check health, but this case is the first suspect of bird flu
so far," said the doctor in Kien Giang's capital, Rach Gia, 250 km (155 miles) southwest of Ho Chi Minh City.
If confirmed, she would be the first person from Cambodia found to be infected by the H5N1 virus this year.
The 13-year-old girl, who had been confirmed by doctors as infected by bird flu, died late on Friday in Ho Chi Minh
City's Paediatric Hospital No.1, said a hospital official.
The girl from the southern province of Dong Thap was taken to hospital on January 22, one day after her mother died
of bird flu. Officials said the mother was infected because she swam in waters used to dispose of poultry.
The death of the girl brought to 43 the number who have died since the virus first erupted in Asia at the end of 2003.
Of those 31 were in Vietnam and 12 in Thailand.
The World Health Organization has said the bird flu virus might already have infected people in countries
neighbouring Vietnam such as Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, but which lack the infrastructure or capacity to conduct
necessary surveillance.
Outbreaks of the virus that kills about 80 percent of people it infects were last detected in Cambodia in September
2004. No human casualty has been reported there.
On Friday, doctors said bird flu has killed a man in northern Vietnam while three others were being treated for the
virus, bringing Vietnam's total number of infections to 16 in the latest wave of the virus, which started in early December
2004.
Of those infected, 11 have died since December 30 while one has been discharged from a Hanoi hospital after he
recovered.
Reuters - January 29, 2005.
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