Vietnam Testing for Bird Flu in Four Deaths

Health authorities in Vietnam are investigating whether four people who died two weeks ago of acute respiratory infection were victims of bird flu, officials said on Wednesday.

Health authorities in Vietnam are investigating whether four people who died two weeks ago of acute respiratory infection were victims of bird flu, officials said on Wednesday. The four, who died between July 30 and Aug. 2, were all from the southern province of Hau Giang, around 106 miles southwest of Ho Chi Minh City. Hau Giang is among 11 provinces in southern Vietnam hit by a recurrence of bird flu. About 50,000 poultry have died or been culled in the past month in the southern region. “Samples from the dead people are being tested for bird flu,” said an official from the anti-bird flu committee in Ho Chi Minh City. “Test results are not available yet,” said Nguyen Thi Kim Tien, director of the city’s Pasteur Institute, which houses a major laboratory for bird flu virus tests in southern Vietnam. The deadly virus killed 24 people, including 16 from Vietnam and eight in Thailand, when the epidemic erupted across many part of Asia late last year. People are believed to have caught the disease from close contact with sick birds. There were no confirmed cases of human-to-human transmissions. (Source: Reuters, August 2004)