Laos confirms bird first flu case in seven months

BANGKOK, Feb 20 (Reuters) Landlocked Laos has reported its first case of the H5N1 bird flu virus in seven months, found on a chicken farm near Vientiane, a senior official said today.

More than 1,000 fowl in Non-Sawang village, 5 km from the capital, were culled in a bid to stop the virus spreading following the unusual deaths of 17 chickens last week, government spokesman Yong Chanhthalansy told Reuters by telephone.

''The lab results in both Vientiane and Vietnam have confirmed that the chickens died of H5N1,'' he said.

There had been no reports of human cases and an area within a 5 km radius around the outbreak had been disinfected and remained under tight surveillance, he said.

Communist Laos, where most of its 5.6 million people live in villages, was hit by the H5N1 virus in early 2004 as it first swept through parts of Asia.

The virus has killed up to 167 people worldwide since it re-emerged in Asia in 2003, among them 17 people in neighbouring Thailand and six in Cambodia.

REUTERS MS PM1659