Vietnam, 18th case

Xinhuanet (PR China) is reporting that a 21 year old male has been diagnosed with bird flu, confirmed, the newservice says, by the director of the Thai Binh Preventive Medicine Center. He is being treated at the Tropical Disease Institute in Hanoi and is said to be "facing difficulty in breathing." This is the 18th bird flu case in the current outbreak, not counting the Cambodian woman who died in Vietnam after crossing the border for treatment. The patient's 14 year old sister is also reported hospitalized with fever and is a suspect case. There is no information at the moment on exposure to infected birds.

This is the first reported case in Vietnam in three weeks. Thus the current outbreak, the third in Vietnam since 2003, is not over.