Vietnam spots birdflu outbreaks near China
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-12-05 20:47

Vietnam said on Monday four bird flu outbreaks have killed more than 900 ducks and chickens in a northern province on the border with China.

Health workers slaughtered another 3,717 birds in Cao Bang province after the outbreaks were reported in four communes last Friday, the Agriculture Ministry's Animal Health Department said.

"The test results showed the birds were positive with the H5 virus," it said in a report on its Web site, www.mard.gov.vn/dah.

The poultry infections in Cao Bang, 270 km (170 miles) north of Hanoi and which borders the Chinese southern province of Guangxi, followed six outbreaks last week in Vietnam's north.

Bird flu has killed or resulted in the slaughter of 2.39 million poultry since the virus returned in early October and has now spread to 17 of Vietnam's 64 provinces, most in the north as winter arrives.

The H5N1 virus which thrives best in cooler temperatures has infected 133 people in Asia since late 2003 and killed almost 70 people. Vietnam has 93 human infections, 42 of them fatal.