Bird flu has killed a 10-year-old girl in southern Vietnam, doctors said today.
The girl from the southern Vietnamese province of Long An died yesterday, raising the toll in Vietnam from H5N1 virus to 12 since the disease erupted again in December.
The death toll from the Asian bird flu since the end of 2003 now stands at 44 - 32 in Vietnam and 12 in Thailand. Vietnamese authorities are waiting for test results on a Cambodian woman (25) who was hospitalised on January 28th with a high fever and died yesterday.
Most bird flu victims are believed to have caught the virus from infected poultry, but doctors fear it could mutate into a form that is easily passed between people, unleashing a global human flu pandemic that could kill millions.