H5N1 Spread into Southern Vietnam
Recombinomics Commentary 2:48
December 27, 2007
Vietnam's Health Ministry has confirmed that bird flu virus killed a four-year-old child in the country's north, the first human case in nearly five months, state-run radio said on Thursday.
Separately, the government said the virus had returned to the Mekong delta in the south killing hundreds of ducks and chickens this month.
The above comments confirm the H5N1 fatality in Son La in northern Vietnam. Recent sequences from an earlier case in northern Vietnam match sequences from ducks in northern Vietnam.
The comments above indicate H5N1 has now spread to southern Vietnam. The H5N1 circulating in the north is clade 2.3 (Fujian strain), which has been widely reported in China and Hong Kong. and is likely in recent wild bird isolates from Hong Kong.
More detail on the H5N1 that has spread into the south would be useful
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