HANOI: Vietnam has announced the reemergence of bird flu among its poultry after six months with no reported outbreaks of the H5N1 virus, the country's animal health department said.

The infected poultry were reported in nine farming households in the northern mountainous Dien Bien province between October 21 and 23, said the department in an online report late on Sunday.

Animal health workers have slaughtered more than 2,200 poultry to contain the outbreak, it said.

Communist Vietnam has the world's second-highest human bird flu death toll after Indonesia, with 56 deaths to date.

This year, the country has reported four human fatalities. The last case was a 23-year-old woman who died in northern Thanh Hoa province in late April.

- AFP/sc