Int'l - Avian Flu News Report

Vietnam reports new bird flu outbreak

Vietnam, which has seen no bird flu outbreaks since April, has found that some 6,000 chickens in southern Ben Tre province either infected or killed by bird flu, local newspaper Saigon Liberation reported Tuesday.

Some 6,000 out of 6,700 chickens raised by a local farmer from Chau Thanh district either became sick or died between June 9-11. The whole flock were culled after specimens from them were tested positive to bird flu virus strain H5N1.

Late last week, the Preventive Medicine Department under Vietnam's Health Ministry announced that four local people were infected with H5N1 from June 1-17, including two from Hanoi capital city, one from northern Hai Duong province, and one from central Nghe An province.

All the four people are alive. Now, a total of seven patients are being treated for bird flu in Hanoi-based Institute of Tropical Diseases, the department said. The newly confirmed cases bring the total in Vietnam since mid-December 2004 to 59 cases, of which 18 were fatal.

Since the first bird flu patient was detected in Vietnam in late 2003, Vietnam had detected 86 human cases of bird flu infection, including 38 fatalities, in 31 cities and provinces, the department confirmed late last week.

China reports new outbreak of bird flu: FAO

China today reported a new outbreak of deadly bird flu which has infected 128 geese and ducks in the northwestern Xinjiang region, killing 63 of them, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) told Agence France-Presse.

The outbreak -- the third reported by the Chinese government in the past two months -- occurred in Changji city near Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, the FAO said citing Chinese government information.

'We got this information from the Ministry of Agriculture this afternoon,' said Noureddin Mona, the FAO's representative in China. 'The report said 128 geese and ducks were infected, 63 have died.'

Citing the MOA report, which has not been made public, Mona said that authorities have culled 1,490 birds, including the infected geese and ducks and those raised in nearby farms.

'The MOA said it's under control,' Mona said. 'No human cases were reported.'

The infected birds were diagnosed by a national bird flu laboratory and determined to have died from the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, Mona said.

The MOA report did not say when the outbreak occurred.

Earlier this month, 1,042 geese were infected with H5N1 at a farm in Tacheng city in northwestern Xinjiang, near the border with Kazakhstan, with 460 of them dying, state media had reported.