Vietnam reports fourth bird flu death this year
Posted: 26 February 2008 1004 hrs

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HANOI: A 23-year-old woman from northern Vietnam has died of bird flu, the health ministry said Tuesday, the country's fourth such death since the start of the year.

It brings Vietnam's total number of deaths from avian influenza to 51.

Nguyen Huy Nga, the director of the health ministry's preventive medicine department, said the woman, a teacher, died Monday after testing positive for the H5N1 virus two days earlier.

Northern Vietnam has recently been in the grip of a cold snap that brought rare ice and snow to mountaintops, killing crops and livestock and increasing the risk of flu and other respiratory diseases.

The H5N1 bird flu virus mainly kills animals, but scientists fear it could mutate to easily jump from human to human, sparking a global pandemic.

The World Health Organisation has so far confirmed 366 human cases of H5N1 bird flu worldwide, of which 232 people have died, according to its website, which does not include Vietnam's latest reported fatality. - AFP/ac