10 year old Vietnamese girl has died. Victim number 12.

The second of the two girls noted in a previous post has now died of bird flu (via Xinhua/China View).

It is often easy to forget there are people behind the numbers. Someone's older or younger sister, best friend, their little girl. So I am posting her picture (from Agence France Presse).

A 25 year old Cambodian woman has been hospitalized in Vietnam in critical condition and is on a respirator (see Recombinomics for details). She lived in a Cambodian province bordering Vietnam. Bird flu is the presumptive diagnosis.

Update (1/31/05): The Cambodian woman has now died . It is reported her young brother had also died before being seen by medical care. If confirmed due to H5N1, this would be Cambodia's first death from bird flu. Meanwhile, another death is under investigation, a 39 year old man from Danang in the central highlands. If confirmed, this would be the central region's first case.

In addition, it is reported that seven more hospitalized cases are under investigation by Vietnam's National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (update info from ABC News).