Vietnam reports first human bird flu death since 2005

Vietnam has confirmed its first human bird flu death since 2005, bringing its death toll to 43 as the virus continues to spread through poultry stocks, official media said.

Tests confirmed a 20-year-old man from northern Ha Tay province died from the H5N1 bird flu virus a week ago, the Vietnam News Agency quoted Vice Minister of Health Trinh Quan Huan as saying Saturday at a bird flu meeting in Hanoi.

The man fell sick on June 2 and died June 10, two days after being admitted to a hospital, it said. His house and surrounding areas have been disinfected, the news agency said.

The man's family raised about two dozen fighting cocks along with ducks, it said.

Vietnam had not reported a human bird flu death since November 2005, even though it has recently had four other human cases. Two of the patients have fully recovered, while the other two remain hospitalized.

The online newspaper Vietnamnet quoted a government report at the bird flu meeting as saying that poultry outbreaks have been reported in 18 provinces in the latest flare-up since early May, killing or forcing the slaughter of nearly 200,000 poultry, 96 percent of them ducks.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung ordered local governments to work out detailed, aggressive measures to prevent the virus from spreading further, it said.

"The risks of new outbreaks and the virus spreading on a large scale are huge," Vietnamnet quoted the report as saying.

The report blamed the latest wave of outbreaks on negligence by local authorities in fighting the virus, which has killed at least 191 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

The disease remains hard for humans to catch, but experts fear it may mutate into a dangerous form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a pandemic that could kill millions. So far, most human cases have been linked to contact with infected birds.