Second human bird flu case in Vietnam in a week
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-17 16:02

A second human case of bird flu has been identified in under a week in Vietnam where 36 people have died from the disease since late 2003, a health official said.

A 58-year-old man from northern Vietnam's Thanh Hoa province was admitted to the Institute of Tropical Diseases in Hanoi late last week and tested positive to the H5N1 virus, said Cao Van Vien, deputy director of the institute.

"He was transferred to our hospital from the tuberculosis institute," Vien told AFP.

A Vietnamese woman looks for a chicken at a market in Hanoi May 17, 2005. A 58-year-old Vietnamese man has been infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus, state media reported on Tuesday, the country's second human case in a month. [Reuters]

Doctors said the patient and another 52-year-old man from Vinh Phuc province, also in the north, who too tested positive to the virus in the same institute late last week, were in stable condition.

"We are now treating two H5N1 patients and they are in good condition," one of the doctors said.

Health officials in the two provinces said they had quarantined the patients' houses.

"We are investigating the source of infection for the man from Thanh Hoa province," an official from the provincial preventive health care centre said.

The Hanoi institute had held a ceremony on Friday to discharge a 21-year-old H5N1 patient, who had been in a critical condition and whose close relatives too were infected with the deadly virus in February.

Since late 2003, avian influenza has also killed 12 people in Thailand and four in Cambodia.

Recent research showed the virus would be extremely difficult to eliminate in Vietnam's poultry population.

Health experts have said there could be another full-blown outbreak of bird flu in Vietnam this year, urging the disinfection of areas containing poultry.

They have also warned the H5N1 virus could lead to a pandemic if it mutated into a form that could be easily transmitted between humans.

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