An 18-year-old girl from Vietnam's southern region has just been hospitalized for being suspected of having contracted virus H5N1, raising the number of confirmed and suspected cases of bird flu to five, local health official told Xinhua Friday.
"The patient was admitted to our hospital yesterday after exhibiting symptoms of high temperature and difficult breathing. We'll conduct testing to see whether she is infected with H5N1 or not," said Tran Tinh Hien, deputy director of the Hospital of Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City.
The girl from Tien Giang province lives in an area suffering bird flu-infected fowls, he said.
"To date, we've received reports from hospitals in other southern localities about a total of five suspected cases of bird flu infections. Testing conducted by our hospital, not other professional institutions, showed three samples were positive to H5N1," Hien said.
He said that among the three H5N1-positive cases, a 16-year-old girl from southern Tay Ninh province is in a very dangerous condition in the city-based hospital; a nine-year old boy from southern Tra Vinh province died early this week; and a six-year- old child in southern Dong Thap province died last month. All of them had direct or indirect contact with sick poultry.
According to the Department of Animal Health, since last December, the relapse of bird flu has been seen in 11 localities, one in the north and 10 in the south, killing or leading to the forced culling of nearly 29,000 fowls.
In late March 2004, Vietnam declared an end to the bird flu that killed 17 percent of its poultry population and claimed at least 21 human lives during the previous outbreak starting in December 2003. A total of 43.2 million fowls nationwide either died or were culled, causing a total loss of 1.3 trillion Vietnamese dong (US$82.8 million) to the local poultry industry.