EDIS Number: EH-20091201-24021-VNM
Date / time: 01/12/2009 05:50:46 [UTC]
Event: Epidemic Hazard
Area: Asia
Country: Vietnam
State/County: Province of Dien Bien
City: Dien Bien Phu
Number of Deads: 1 persons
Number of Injured: None or unknow
Damage level: Minor

Description:

Bird flu has killed a Vietnamese man, the Health Ministry reported Tuesday, following warnings from the World Health Organization about a potential combination of the bird flu and swine flu viruses. The 23-year-old man died last week, two days after being admitted to a hospital in the northern province of Dien Bien, some 310 miles (500 kilometers) north of Hanoi, the ministry said in a statement on its Web site. Test results confirmed he was infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus. He fell sick after eating duck blood pudding. Last week, the WHO warned that with fresh H5N1 bird flu cases reported in poultry in Egypt, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, the risk of bird flu and the H1N1 pandemic swine flu virus mixing was heightened. Egypt also has recently reported human cases.

Event updates:
Situation Update No. 1 on 01.12.2009 at 05:55:53.