Vietnamese Bird Flu Doctor has Bird Flu
Date: 20-Jun-05
Country: VIETNAM
The male doctor had been taking samples from carriers of the H5N1 virus, the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said without specifying how he contracted the disease. His condition was stable, it said.
The infection took to 7 the number of bird flu victims revealed this week in Vietnam and the number of infections to 62 since December, 18 of whom have died.
The H5N1 virus has killed 38 people in Vietnam since it appeared in late 2003. Twelve Thais and four Cambodians have also died.
Bird flu first emerged in the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam in late 2003, then spread to the northern region where the virus appears to develop rapidly during the winter.
Scientists fear the avian flu, which is infectious in birds but does not spread easily among humans, could mutate into a form capable of generating a pandemic in which millions of people without immunity could die.
