Bird flu kills one Vietnamese

HANOI, June 16 (Reuters) Bird flu has killed one patient in Vietnam, the first death in the country since 2005, state-run television quoted a government report on Saturday as saying.

The patient died last week in the northern province of Ha Tay neighbouring Hanoi, a Health Ministry report was quoted as saying but no further details were given.

Vietnam's programme of poultry vaccination and other measures has been described by international health experts as a model for keeping the H5N1 virus at bay, but this year it has spread nationwide in ducks and chickens.

Saturday's report brings to five the number of human cases announced by health authorities since May and the first fatality, raising Vietnam's death toll since late 2003 to 43 people.

The World Health Organisation has not confirmed the latest cases.

''We are aware of a number of suspected cases but nothing can be confirmed until we have results from our labs,'' WHO spokeswoman Dida Connor said in Hanoi.

''We are investigating closely. The government is working with us,'' she said.

In October 2005 a 35-year-old man died in Hanoi after eating a chicken and health officials later confirmed he had the H5N1 virus. That year, H5N1 killed 19 patients out of 61 infected.

Vietnamese officials warned early this week that more people could be infected as bird flu in ducks and chickens has spread to nearly one third of 64 provinces and cities since early May.

Ha Tay is not on the watchlist of infected areas but the province is the biggest poultry supplier to nearly three million people in the capital.

One of the cases, a 30-year-old man whose infection was reported on May 24, was discharged from a Hanoi hospital on June 4 after doctors said they had cured him.

On Tuesday, health officials said two women, aged 28 and 29, had been infected by the H5N1 virus in the northern provinces of Thanh Hoa and Ha Nam. The two women and an infected slaughterhouse worker have been treated in the Hanoi hospital.

Globally, the H5N1 virus has killed 191 people out of 313 known cases, according to a tally by the WHO. Hundreds of millions of birds have died or been slaughtered.

The H5N1 virus remains mainly a virus of birds, but experts fear it could change into a form easily transmitted from person to person and sweep the world, killing millions.

So far, most human cases can be traced to direct or indirect contact with infected birds.

Vietnam's Animal Health Department said today that fresh bird flu cases had been found among chickens and ducks in three provinces. All are on the government's watchlist of 16 provinces and two cities.

The H5N1 virus was found in ducks in the northern province of Thai Binh on Monday, in a duck farm in the northern province of Vinh Phuc on Wednesday and in another duck flock in the central province of Quang Nam on Thursday, the department said.

Yesterday it said bird flu had spread to ducks and chickens in a farm in Cao Bang province that borders China's southern province of Guangxi.

REUTERS GT RN2253