- (AFP) -- The World Health Organisation confirmed that
a fourth person died from bird flu in Vietnam and stressed that the disease
is only being transmitted by birds and not yet by humans.
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- Local authorities have recorded 13 deaths due to the
H5N1 strain of avian influenza out of 18 suspected cases, but the WHO has
yet to verify the others.
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- The fourth person to die from the disease, which has
triggered an Asia-wide health scare, was a five-year-old child in the Vietnamese
province of Nam Dinh, who passed away on January 8, said WHO spokeswoman
Fadela Chaib.
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- But all the victims confirmed dead in Vietnam so far
caught the deadly flu directly from a bird and not through human transmission,
according to the WHO.
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- The H5N1 strain has been genetically sequenced, Chaib
told a regular news conference in Geneva, where the global health body
is headquartered.
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- "We know that all the genes originate from birds
and they have not mutated to come from humans," she said.
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- "It is very important to know this because if the
genes mutate and start to come from humans then they will be able to be
transmitted from one person to another," explained Chaib.
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- Citing WHO experts, the spokeswoman also indicated that
it was "practically impossible" to become contaminated from eating
cooked chicken.
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- "The cooking kills the virus," she said.
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- Similarly, boiling the bird before plucking it also killed
the bug.
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- Vietnam has ordered the slaughter of all chickens in
the 12 regions grappling with a bird flu epidemic and banned the sale of
poultry in Ho Chi Minh City, the country's largest metropolis.
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- South Korea, Japan and Taiwan were also battling their
own outbreaks of bird flu, which is threatening to spoil next week's Lunar
New Year celebrations across the region and comes amid a re-emergence of
SARS in southern China.
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