Vietnam today reported two more bird flu deaths, bringing the human toll to nine in three weeks and further raising the threat of the disease emerging as the next global pandemic, officials said.

A SIX-YEAR-OLD boy from southern Vietnam has died of bird flu, a doctor said yesterday, in the second report this week of a death from the virus.

More than 230,000 people are in need of emergency food aid after floods in Vietnam's southern Mekong Delta that killed 56 people.

Rising flood waters triggered by heavy seasonal rains have killed 17 people in central and southern Vietnam.