Ho Chi Minh City kills ducks in bird flu fight

Vietnam's biggest city, home to 10 million people, began slaughtering its ducks today in an increasingly desperate fight to halt…

Vietnam's biggest city, home to 10 million people, began slaughtering its ducks today in an increasingly desperate fight to halt the spread of the deadly bird flu virus that has killed 13 people in the last month.

Health workers and inspectors in Ho Chi Minh City, accompanied by police, headed to farms to collect ducks, which can carry the H5N1 virus without showing symptoms, as well as pigeons being raised for food.

The birds would be killed by burning or being buried alive, an animal health official said a day after a Vietnamese doctor confirmed the death of the first Cambodian in waves of outbreaks that have now killed 45 people.

"After the killing, duck raising will not be allowed for one year," said the official at the city's Animal Health Department.

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World Health Organization (WHO) officials have headed to the Cambodian province of Kampot, which abuts Vietnam across a porous border, to investigate the area the Cambodian woman came from.

Although Cambodian officials said there had been no confirmed outbreak of the virus in the country, the woman's relatives said chickens had died and they had cooked and eaten them with her.

Fowl in the area had been slaughtered, however, and it had been sprayed, the officials said as the WHO expressed fears the virus might have spread to Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, all poor countries where surveillance systems are rudimentary at best.