Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organization were hunting yesterday for cases of humans infected by bird flu in southern Vietnam after four deaths in the north.
Officials of the UN agencies were meeting health and agriculture officials in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's biggest city which is in the south of the country, in their search for victims, said WHO spokesman Robert Dietz.
"They're speaking with officials and trying to find out what is happening," Dietz said.
PHOTO: AFP
Eight northern and seven southern provinces have reported outbreaks of avian flu type H5N1 but the south has been hardest hit. Two southern provinces have seen the cull or deaths of 1 million chickens.
But all the confirmed human flu cases have been in the north, baffling the experts.
The deaths have raised fears of a new deadly epidemic sweeping out of the region that saw an outbreak of SARS spread around the world last year and kill about 800 people.
The four confirmed bird flu deaths, three children and one woman, occurred in three provinces near Hanoi. The woman was the mother of one of the children. Vietnam has a total of 12 suspected avian flu deaths.
The WHO said it had found no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 virus. Some of the victims had come into contact with sick poultry, a WHO official said.
But in what could be the first cases of bird flu in humans in the south, a hospital in Kien Giang province said yesterday a man showing symptoms similar to those seen in bird flu victims had died.
A woman with similar symptoms was in critical condition.
"Clearly we know there's avian influenza in the south, probably on a bigger scale than in the north, so we are concerned that there could be other [human] cases over there," said Peter Horby, the WHO's Hanoi-based epidemiologist.
"That's one of the reasons we are bringing epidemiologists who can go to the south who can try to detect any cases that might be there," he said in an interview late on Saturday.
Five children remain hospitalized in Hanoi as suspected avian flu cases, but only one was very sick, Horby said. Seven adults suspected of having bird flu were being treated at Hanoi's Bach Mai hospital.
South Korea, Japan and Taiwan have also reported outbreaks of bird flu but Vietnam has been the hardest hit.
The type of avian flu virus that caused the four confirmed deaths in Vietnam is similar to a variant that struck Hong Kong in 1997, killing six people.
The virus emerged in Vietnam just ahead of the country's biggest celebration, Tet or the Lunar New Year which kicks off on Wednesday.
New Year dinners usually feature chicken but Ho Chi Minh City and two nearby provinces have banned the sale of the birds.
Eating cooked chicken and eggs was safe, Horby said.
Vietnam has ordered that farms and villages reporting bird flu destroy all poultry in their vicinity, but has not sought the mass destruction of fowl in provinces with cases.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand, one of the world's biggest chicken producers, said on Saturday the WHO had confirmed there was no bird flu in his country.
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