HANOI : Bird flu killed a Vietnamese man this week, the country's second victim of the H5N1 strain in 2008, raising the national death toll from the virus to 49, health officials said Thursday.

The 40-year-old man died of pneumonia and kidney failure Wednesday at the National Contagious and Tropical Diseases Hospital in Hanoi, said deputy director Nguyen Hong Ha.

"The man from Hai Duong province died of H5N1 type-A influenza," said Nguyen Huy Nga, head of the Preventive Medicine Department at the Ministry of Health. "This is 103rd case of bird flu and the 49th death from it in Vietnam."

The man had been treated at home and in a provincial hospital after having handled chicken, said Nga, adding that people who were in close contact with him were now also being tested for bird flu and given the drug Tamiflu.

Northern Vietnam has been in the grip of a month-long cold snap that has aided the spread of respiratory diseases because immune systems are weakened and people spend more time indoors together, experts warn.

Last week's traditional Tet lunar New Year, the country's biggest festival, was seen as a particularly high-risk period for the spread of the virus because the movement of poultry products, and of people, rises sharply.

Bird flu outbreaks among poultry have hit in recent weeks in the northern province of Thai Nguyen and in central Quang Binh, authorities have said.

On January 18 bird flu killed a 32-year-old man from Tuyen Quang province northwest of Hanoi. He had suffered severe pneumonia symptoms after reportedly preparing and eating poultry he found dead near his house.

The virus is mainly an animal disease, but scientists fear it could mutate to easily jump from human to human, sparking a deadly global pandemic.

The World Health Organisation has so far confirmed 360 human cases of H5N1 bird flu worldwide, of whom 226 have died, not including the latest Vietnam fatality, according to WHO figures published online. - AFP/ch