- BANGKOK -- The World Health
Organization is concerned about the reported death of at least one person
in Vietnam from a particularly deadly strain of the bird flu virus. The
United Nations agency has asked Vietnam for samples of the virus, to confirm
that it is the same strain that killed chickens and humans in the region
earlier this year.
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- According to the World Health Organization, the Vietnamese
government says it found the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus in
one of three people who died recently of bird flu. The U.N. organization
says it has asked the Vietnamese health ministry for samples to send to
an outside laboratory for independent confirmation.
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- The Vietnamese say they are investigating three separate
suspected bird flu deaths in the southern province of Hau Giang, and they
say eight more people suspected of being infected with the virus are in
the hospital.
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- The H5N1 virus swept across Asia last January, killing
16 people in Vietnam and eight in Thailand. Most of the victims had handled
infected chickens. H5N1 also killed millions of chickens and ducks, and
prompted governments across the region to order the culling of millions
more in order to stop the virus's spread.
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- Peter Cordingley, spokesman for the Western Pacific office
of the World Health Organization, says WHO is asking Vietnamese officials
for permission to bring a team of epidemiologists into the country to study
the latest cases.
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- Mr. Cordingley says WHO is worried that the virus could
change into a form that can be transmitted between humans, which could
lead to a global pandemic. "Each time this virus does cross, [there
is a chance] of it mixing with the human flu virus in somebody who contracts
the avian flu virus and then [producing] a completely new virus against
which there is no immunity," he said. "This is a public health
element that concerns WHO."
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- Mr. Cordingley says governments in the region are taking
the threat of bird flu seriously. But he says the disease mainly strikes
chicken flocks in the countryside, where there are not enough people to
keep watch. He says it is still too early to tell how serious the latest
situation is.
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- "We're watching it very carefully. We don't know
yet just how serious this situation is, information is sketchy," said
Mr. Cordingley. "I mean this could blow through as isolated cases
or it could be the beginning of something more serious."
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- The Thai government says a countrywide surveillance network
has been established to report any possible bird flu infections in humans.
Since the disease re-emerged in Thailand last month, the virus has been
detected in fowl in 24 of Thailand's 76 provinces.
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- In recent months the virus has also resurfaced among
birds in China and Indonesia.
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