Vietnam reports another suspected bird flu death

An 18-year-old woman in Vietnam has died of suspected bird flu, in what would be the country’s fourth death from the virus in two weeks, a doctor said today.

The woman from the southern province of Hau Giang died yesterday, said Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan, deputy director of the Tuberculosis and Lung Disease Hospital in Can Tho.

She had been admitted to the hospital two days earlier with a high fever and serious lung infection – a week after slaughtering a chicken which her family asked her to bury and not eat, Nhan said.

“Judging from her clinical symptoms and epidemical factors, we suspected she contracted bird flu,” Nhan said.