More ducks die from bird flu in Vietnam

HANOI, May 31 (Reuters) Bird flu has killed hundreds of ducks in two farms in northern and southern Vietnam in the past two days, the Agriculture Ministry said today.

On Tuesday, 115 ducks died at a farm in the southern Mekong delta city of Can Tho and 150 ducks died in the northern province of Quang Ninh on Wednesday. Tests confirmed the H5N1 virus in both cases, the Animal Health Department said.

The two flocks had not been vaccinated against bird flu and animal health workers slaughtered the remaining 685 ducks there. The number of birds killed by the virus and slaughtered this month is more than 50,000 nationwide.

Quang Ninh province and Can Tho city are among the 12 localities which reported bird flu outbreaks in poultry this month at the beginning of summer, which is unusual as experts say the virus thrives best in cool temperatures.

On Wednesday, Agriculture Minister Cao Duc Phat said the country was on the brink of another bird flu epidemic in poultry after the H5N1 virus has spread rapidly over the past month.

Last week, the Southeast Asian country reported its first human case of H5N1 virus infection in a year and a half, a 30-year-old man in a province neighbouring Hanoi.

Doctors treating the man in Hanoi's Bach Mai hospital said his condition was improving and that he was now able to breathe without respirator.

Bird flu has killed 42 people in Vietnam since it re-surfaced in Asia in late 2003. The virus struck both people and birds in Vietnam in 2005 but only infected poultry last year and early this year before the man was hospitalised.

Globally the virus has infected 309 people in 12 countries, 187 of them had died, according to the World Health Organisation.

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