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Human cases of bird flu China and Vietnam
Wednesday, 7 January, 2009
A confirmed case of human infection with the avian influenza H5N1 virus has occurred in Beijing. A 19 year old woman was admitted to hospital on 24 Dec 2008 and died on 5 January 2009. Chinese media report that she had bought a duck at a market outside Beijing. She is thought to have become unwell after slaughtering the bird. This is the 31st case of human infection in China.
An 8-year-old Vietnamese girl from the country's northern Thanh Hoa Province has been infected with bird flu and hospitalized at the Viet Nam National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology and currently is reported to be in a stable condition. According to press reports the girl ate chicken before being hospitalized, and specimens from poultry raised in Dien Chung town, where the girl is from, have recently tested positive for bird flu virus. This is the 1st human case of H5N1 avian influenza to have occurred in Viet Nam since March 2008. Prior to the current case, there had been 106 human cases.
