NVDL: Right now we're experiencing a seasonal change, which coincides with the movements of migratory birds.
HANOI, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Bird flu has killed 590 ducks in a northern Vietnam province, the fifth to have reported outbreaks among poultry within about a month, the government said on Wednesday.
The two-month-old ducks started dying on Monday at a farm in Ha Nam province. Tests confirmed on Wednesday the presence of the H5N1 bird flu virus, the Animal Health Department said in its daily report.Further tests also found the H5N1 virus in samples taken from two dead chickens dumped in a river in Ha Nam province, 60 km (37 miles) south of Hanoi, the report said.
The case in Ha Nam brought to five the number of provinces that have confirmed bird flu in poultry since early October. Three of the provinces are in the north, one is in the southern Mekong delta, while the fifth is in the central province of Quang Tri.
Floods that affected Quang Tri in the past two weeks could help spread the virus to nearby areas, an Agriculture Ministry official said.
No human infections have been reported in Vietnam since the virus killed a teenager in early August, one of four deaths among seven Vietnamese known to have been infected this year. Since 2003, bird flu has killed 46 people in Vietnam.
Globally, the H5N1 virus has killed 205 people out of 334 known cases, with most of the deaths in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Egypt, the World Health Organisation figures show. (Reporting by Ho Binh Minh, editing by David Fogarty)
Bird flu kills Indonesian toddler, raises country's death toll to 89
1 day ago
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesian health officials say a toddler has died from bird flu after apparently coming into contact with dead poultry.
Nyoman Kandun, a senior health ministry official, says the four-year-old girl from Tangerang, about 20 kilometres west of the capital Jakarta, died Monday after being in hospital for two days.
Kandun says investigators concluded the girl had contact with dead poultry in her neighbourhood.
Kandun says the death raises the number of people in Indonesia who have died from the disease to 89. The girl is the fourth Indonesian killed by the disease this month.
The World Health Organization says Indonesia's death toll from bird flu now accounts for almost one-half of the recorded 203 fatalities worldwide.
The disease remains hard for people to catch - most cases have so far been traced to contact with infected birds. But experts fear it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans, potentially sparking a global pandemic.
Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country and home to millions of backyard chickens, is considered a possible hot spot for spreading the disease.
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