HANOI : Bird flu has spread to a sixth province in southern Vietnam, officials have said, after the virus killed over 800 ducks on a farm in the Mekong Delta.

"They tested positive for the H5N1 strain of the virus on Friday," said Le Tuyet Hong, director of the Tra Vinh provincial animal health department.

The ducks died earlier this week in the Tam Ngai commune of Tra Vinh province, she said, and the virus was confirmed as the cause in tests by the regional veterinary centre in neigbouring Can Tho province.

Vietnam has reported no new human cases since November 2005 of the disease that killed 42 people in the country between 2003 and 2005.

But since December, bird flu has struck scores of poultry farms in the southern provinces of Ca Mau, Bac Lieu, Hau Giang, Kien Giang, Vinh Long and Tra Vinh, said the Ministry of Agriculture.

Health experts warn that the bird flu risk increases in the colder winter months and around the mid-February Tet New Year's festival when poultry consumption and the movement of people rises.

The communist government has sent inspection teams to southern provinces and cities to reinforce measures to prevent bird flu, and has stepped up enforcement of a ban on the illegal import of poultry from neighbouring China.

Epidemiologists fear the H5N1 virus could trigger a global pandemic if it were to mutate and become easily transmitted between humans.

- AFP/ir