Vietnam reports 5 new bird flu cases

HANOI -- Vietnam reported five more suspected human bird flu cases yesterday, as the World Health Organization confirmed that a fourth death had been caused by the disease. In Taiwan, meanwhile, 35,000 chickens were being culled at an infected farm.

The latest death in Vietnam was of a 5-year-old boy from Nam Dinh province, 60 miles south of Hanoi, who died on Jan. 8., said a WHO spokesman, Bob Dietz. He said increased numbers of people are being hospitalized with respiratory problems, although it is unclear whether they are linked to bird flu.

"We believe we are seeing more cases of respiratory illness" coming into two hospitals in Hanoi, Dietz said.

Millions of chickens in the region have been infected with one of two strains of bird flu. The stronger one has hit poultry farms hardest in Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan, prompting authorities to order the slaughter of millions of chickens. The milder strain has been detected in Taiwan.

Asian governments have been quick to try to curb the virus. WHO's Vietnam representative, Pascale Brudon, has attributed that response in part to last year's epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.

Yesterday, Taiwan began culling 35,000 chickens at a farm in the island's south where a mild form of bird flu was discovered. It was Taiwan's second mass slaughter in three days, after an outbreak was detected in central Taiwan on Thursday.

The Council of Agriculture said the chickens at the farm in Chiayi County had been infected with the less dangerous strain.

"The prevention of virus outbreaks is like a war," said a council vice chairman, Hu Fu-hsiung. "The war has not come yet, but we are preparing for it."

Poultry farms within a half-mile of the farm were also checked for signs of the flu, but nothing was found, officials said.

With chicken consumption expected to rise during the Lunar New Year holiday, which lasts until Jan. 26, Hu said birds for sale on the market were safe to eat, although he advised consumers to cook the meat well.

Hong Kong and Japan have moved to bar imports of poultry and live birds from Taiwan. The island, mainland China, and Cambodia already have stopped poultry imports from Vietnam, South Korea and Japan. Indonesia barred poultry imports from those three countries on Friday.

The stronger avian flu strain was reported in humans in 1997, in Hong Kong, where 18 people were infected and six died. It cropped up in Hong Kong again last year, infecting two and causing one death.

The WHO has identified the same strain of flu as the cause of four recent deaths in Vietnam. In 2003 in the Netherlands, bird flu killed a veterinarian and infected dozens of people.

The virus, highly contagious among chickens, has not shown any human-to-human transmission, however, and is believed to spread to humans through contact with infected birds.

The virus continues to infect more people in Vietnam.

Officials in southern Kien Giang province said yesterday that a 21-year-old woman admitted on Jan. 11, and a 25-year-old man hospitalized two days later, showed all the symptoms of bird flu -- high fevers, coughs, low blood pressure and low levels of blood cells.

It is the first time suspected human cases have been reported in Vietnam's south, where most of the bird infections have been.

Also, the Tuoi Tre newspaper reported yesterday that three 1-year-old babies from Hanoi and two surrounding provinces suspected of contracting the virus had been admitted to a pediatric hospital. Two of them are on respirators, it said. In Thailand, farmers and a consumer group have said that millions of chickens have been infected by bird flu and that the government is covering it up.The government says the outbreak there is bird cholera -- not bird flu.