Cambodian dies from bird flu, Vietnam to kill ducks

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A Cambodian woman who died in Vietnam was killed by bird flu, a doctor said on Tuesday, the latest victim of fresh outbreaks of the deadly virus taking a steady toll of human lives and possibly spreading abroad.

“We have been informed that tests showed she was infected by the poultry virus,” said the doctor at the General Hospital of Kien Giang province, which treated Tit Sakhan before she died on Sunday, two days after she was admitted with a high fever.

Cambodian officials said they had no confirmation of outbreaks of the H5N1 virus in the country, but the World Health Organization has said it might have hit Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

Relatives of Tit Sakhan, 25, said that they had eaten some of the same dead chickens that Sakhan had eaten.

“The rest of us are so nervous now because some of us are having problems breathing and pains in the ribs,” her father told Reuters by telephone from Kampot province, which borders Vietnam and where the family had been visited by WHO officials.

“No one can tell us what kind of disease we have.”

He also said a 14-year-old son died 12 days before Tit Sakhan, the first confirmed Cambodian victim of the disease, which erupted anew in Vietnam in December.

The virus, which produces a high fever, coughing and acute pneumonia and kills about 80 percent of people it infects, has now killed 45 people since it appeared at the end of 2004—32 in Vietnam and 12 in Thailand.

A 24-year-old Vietnamese man was confirmed as having bird flu on Tuesday, Nguyen Tran Hien, director of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, told a news conference.

He said the man, the 18th case detected in Vietnam since December, was recovering after being taken to a Hanoi hospital on Jan. 25.

Most human bird flu victims have caught the virus from infected poultry, but experts fear it could mutate into a form that is passed easily between people, unleashing a global human flu pandemic that could kill millions.

DUCK SLAUGHTER

It erupted again in the Mekong Delta in December and has killed 12 Vietnamese since, nine in the delta region.

Ho Chi Minh City, home to 10 million people and next door to the delta, tried to stem the third wave of bird flu outbreaks by ordering the slaughter of all its ducks, which can carry the virus without showing symptoms.

It had given officials until Sunday to slaughter 150,000 ducks while a private firm will process 60,000 ducks for consumption, an official told Reuters.

“We will soon be out making it happen,” said the official at the city’s Animal Health Department.

The city has about 210,000 ducks. Half are raised outdoors on small farms, allowing a potentially rapid spread of the virus.

Animal health officials said last week 31 of 148 samples taken from ducks in the city showed the presence of the virus.

Health workers and market inspectors will ensure no ducks are raised locally for a year and all ducks being transported into Ho Chi Minh City will be seized for destruction, often by burning, the Saigon Giai Phong newspaper said.

By Jan. 30, the H5N1 virus had killed or resulted in the slaughter of more than 1 million poultry in 31 of Vietnam’s 64 provinces, the Agriculture Ministry said.

Last year, the epidemic wiped out 17 percent of Vietnam’s poultry stock of 250 million.

Vietnam, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health will hold a three-day regional meeting on bird flu in Ho Chi Minh City starting on Feb. 23, the FAO said.

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