Bird flu kills another Vietnamese
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Bird flu has killed another man in Vietnam, taking the number of deaths in Asia caused by the virus to 62, officials said.
The 35-year-old man died in the Mekong Delta province on July 31, a day after he was taken to hospital with a high fever, state newspapers said on Tuesday.
The Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City had confirmed the man slaughtered and ate two chicken that had the H5N1 virus, the Thanh Nien newspaper said.
The man’s death took Vietnam’s bird flu death toll to 43, with 22 of the victims dying since the virus, which first swept through much of Asia in late 2003, returned in December 2004.
It has also killed at least 12 people in Thailand, four in Cambodia, three in Indonesia and has just struck in Siberia, although there have been no reports of human infections there.
Health experts say the H5N1 virus is now endemic in parts of Asia, including Vietnam and Thailand, despite the deaths or slaughter of tens of millions of domestic fowl.
They fear the longer the virus survives, the more likely it is to mutate into a form that can pass easily between humans. If that happens, millions of people without immunity could die.
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