#1516
Tests are pending, so right now this is only a suspected case.
Bird flu hits Vietnam poultry, may have killed a man
Tue 22 Jan 2008, 17:10 GMT
HANOI, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Bird flu may have killed a 32-year-old Vietnamese man in a northern province where the virus has been found in poultry, state-run media and a government report said on Tuesday.
The man died at a Hanoi hospital of pneumonia earlier this month, two days after he had been taken in from Tuyen Quang province, the hospital's deputy director Nguyen Hong Ha was quoted by the online VTC News newspaper (www.vtc.vn) as saying.
The man fell ill on Jan. 16 after eating chicken which had died of unknown cause. Dead chicken and white-winged ducks were also found near his house, the newspaper quoted a relative as saying.
Vietnamese doctors were testing to see if the man had been infected by the H5N1 virus.
The H5N1 virus remains mainly a virus of birds, but experts fear it could mutate into a form easily transmitted from person to person and sweep the world, killing millions.
In a separate report, the Animal Health Department said tests have confirmed that bird flu has infected poultry in Tuyen Quang province.
