Pregnant Vietnamese woman dies of suspected bird flu

Jul 31, 2007, 12:12 GMT

Hanoi - A pregnant, 22-year-old Vietnamese woman has died of suspected avian influenza in the first new human case here in more than a month, health officials said Tuesday.

The woman, from northern Ha Tay province, is apparently the third person to die of the deadly virus since it re-emerged in Vietnam earlier this year.

Tran Thuy Hanh, director of Bach Mai Hospital, confirmed that the young woman's blood samples tested positive for the H5N1 strain of influenza.

'Yes, this is a new case,' Hanh said by telephone. 'The patient was admitted in July 24 from Ha Tay province as an emergency case, and she died on July 28.'

A World Health Organization representative in Hanoi said Tuesday that his office had not yet been informed of any new bird-flu death.

The woman, who was seven months pregnant, was admitted to hospital with difficulty breathing last week, according to Le Dinh Chien, a health department official in the woman's home district in Ha Tay.

'We have been informed that she was positive to H5N1 but we haven't received any official documents yet,' Chien said.

Vietnam at one time had the highest number of deaths from the H5N1 virus, a disease that primarily affects poultry and wild birds but can infect humans with close contact to sick birds.

The death over the weekend would bring the toll in Vietnam to 45.

Bird flu has killed some 192 people worldwide since it emerged in 2003, according to the WHO. The number of human victims is low, but scientists worry that the H5N1 virus could mutate into a new human influenza strain and trigger a flu pandemic that might kill millions.

The World Health Organization has urged careful monitoring of H5N1 combined with efforts to limit it in domestic poultry to prevent humans from contact with the virus.

Vietnam has been praised for slowing down in the death rate through a mass poultry-vaccination scheme, since there is not yet a human vaccine for H5N1.

The country has seen only three human deaths since the poultry vaccinations began in late 2005. So far, more than 130 million chickens and ducks have been vaccinated.