Bird flu claims eighth victim as virus spreads to 10 countries

THAILAND confirmed Asia’s eighth human victim of the avian flu virus yesterday in the deadliest outbreak on record, while the number of affected countries rose to 10 with Laos and China reporting cases.

China had insisted it was free of the bird flu, but the government said yesterday that the virus was found in dead ducks on a farm in a southern region that borders Vietnam.

No infections have been found in human beings in China, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Some 14,000 birds within a two-mile radius of the farm were slaughtered, and a quarantine was imposed on poultry within three miles, Xinhua said.