Vietnam: Two new human cases of bird flu
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-21 17:25

Two more people from northern Vietnam have been sickened with bird flu, and thousands of chickens have dropped dead in the south, officials said Monday.

The poultry outbreak is the country's first in three months.

The two new victims tested positive for the virus after being admitted to Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi over the weekend, said hospital director Tran Quy.

That brought the number of human case to 13 over the past two weeks, he said, adding the patients, all from the northern provinces, are in stable condition.

Bird flu began ravaging poultry farms across Vietnam in late 2003, killing or forcing the cull of more than 45 million birds. The virus began jumping to humans at about the same time, and has killed 38 people in Vietnam, 12 in Thailand and four in Cambodia.

Meanwhile, more than 4,000 out of 6,700 chickens on a farm in the southern province of Ben Tre died suddenly on June 9, said Mai Van Hiep, director of the provincial animal health bureau.

Authorities killed the remaining chickens two days later, and tests showed they were infected with the H5N1 strain of the bird flu, he said.

Hiep said it was the first reported outbreak in the province since March.