HANOI - Bird flu has killed a man in northern Vietnam, marking the country's first human case this year, health officials said Wednesday.
The 32-year-old man from Tuyen Quang province, about 80 kilometres northwest of Hanoi, died last week, two days after being admitted to the national tropical disease hospital in Hanoi, said To Doan Hong of the provincial Preventive Medicine Centre.
Test results later came back positive for the H5N1 strain of the virus, he said. It was the country's 48th death reported since the virus began raging across Asia in late 2003.
Nguyen Huy Nga, director of the Ministry of Health's Preventive Medicine Department, confirmed the results.
Hong said the man developed bird flu symptoms after slaughtering and cooking six geese and two chickens that had died at his backyard farm Jan. 9. Tests on poultry also came back positive for the H5N1 virus.
"Specimens taken from his family members and neighbours have been tested negative for the bird flu virus," Hong said.
"We have disinfected his house and areas in the neighbourhood."
Health officials have warned the increased movement of people and poultry combined with cool weather could help spread the virus prior to the Lunar New Year festivities that begin Feb. 7.
Tuyen Quang and the northern province Thai Nguyen, along with the central province Quang Binh and southern Tra Vinh remain on the government's bird flu watch list.
Bird flu remains hard for people to catch but health experts worry the virus could mutate into a form that passes easily among humans, sparking a pandemic. So far, most human cases have been linked to contact with infected birds. At least 219 people have died worldwide from the virus, the World Health Organization said.
