November 8, 2005

 

Vietnam confirms bird flu has caused another human death

 

 

Vietnam confirmed on Tuesday its 42nd human death due to bird flu, its first in more than three months, a health ministry official said.

 

The 35-year-old man, who died at a Hanoi hospital on Oct 29, tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu, said Nguyen Van Binh, deputy director of the Preventive Medicine Department under the Ministry of Health.

 

Binh said the man was admitted to the hospital on Oct 26, four days after his family bought a prepared chicken from a market near his house in the Dong Da district of Hanoi.

 

Other family members did not show any symptoms of bird flu, he added.

 

At least 63 people in Asia have been killed by the H5N1 bird flu virus since 2003. Most of the deaths have been linked to direct contact with infected birds. Vietnam's most recent confirmed death was in July.

 

In northern Bac Giang province, some 60 kilometres north-east of Hanoi, more than 58,000 poultry have died or been culled over the past five days in three villages where outbreaks were reported last week, said Than Van Thuy, deputy director of the provincial animal health department.

 

Groups of poultry deaths were also reported in five other villages in the province, he said.

 

"We have been ordered to cull all the poultry in the flocks where birds died en masse," he said.

 

Tuesday's Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reported that Vietnam has ordered 25 million tablets of the antiviral drug Tamiflu from Swiss-based Roche Holding AG.

 

The newspaper quoted Cao Minh Quang, director of the pharmaceutical administration department under the Ministry of Health, as saying talks with the company on a possible license for Vietnam to produce a generic version of the drug were still inconclusive.

 

Last month, Quang said Vietnam would go ahead and produce a generic version of Tamiflu with or without Roche's permission. Tamiflu is one of the few drugs that are believed to be effective against bird flu.