Viet family may have bird flu
The Star, NST, 31 Dec 2006

HANOI: Four members of a family in southern Vietnam have been hospitalized with symptoms of bird flu, a doctor said yesterday, the first suspected human cases in the country in more than a year.

A 36-year-old woman and her three children aged three to 13 were admitted to Nam Can Hospital in Ca Mau province this past week with fevers, coughing, decreased white blood cells and damaged lungs, said Ho Van Van, a doctor at the hospital.

The family had four chickens and five ducks, and ate one of the chickens, which had fallen sick and died, on Dec 23, he said.

Swab samples from the four patients are being tested for the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, Van said. Health officials have disinfected the family’s house and neighborhood, he added.

Vietnam has been widely seen as a model for how to fight bird flu using extensive vaccinations of poultry, careful surveillance and slaughters of birds in affected areas.

However, earlier this month, it reported its first bird flu outbreaks in poultry in a year in Ca Mau and two other provinces in the Mekong Delta. The outbreaks killed or forced the slaughter of more than 13,000 birds in the three provinces. --- AP.