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A Vietnamese man, who died at the weekend, may have been killed by the bird flu virus that has claimed the lives of 46 people in Asia, a doctor said on Tuesday.
The man died on Sunday in the southern province of Kien Giang, three days after he was transferred from the Chau Thanh district health center, where he had been on a respirator, Dr Tran Thanh Tung said.
"We have sent the patient's samples for bird flu tests," said Tung, who heads the anti-bird flu team at Kien Giang's General hospital. He gave no further details.
Since December, when the H5N1 virus broke out anew, 35 of Vietnam's 64 provinces have been affected, most of them in the Mekong Delta in the south. Thirteen Vietnamese and one Cambodian have died of it.
However, the World Health Organization said on Monday it has seen no evidence so far to suggest the virus was changing into a form that could be transmitted easily from one human to another, the greatest fear of experts.
There have been several suspected cases of human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 virus since it spread across much of Asia at the end of 2003 and one probable case, that of a Thai woman who cradled her dying daughter for hours.
If it did acquire the ability to pass easily from person to person, the virus could set off a pandemic in a world population with no immunity to it and millions could die, the WHO says.
It has killed 34 Vietnamese, 12 Thais and a Cambodian and has recurred several times despite the slaughter of millions of poultry.
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