Doctors in Vietnam confirmed that two more deaths were recorded today in Vietnam, according to PA News.
Vietnam has reported a total of 16 deaths from bird flu since the country's latest outbreak began in late December.
Bird flu has hit 35 Vietnamese cities and provinces since January. However, 27 localities have detected no new affected spots for three weeks, meeting criteria to announce an end to the disease. The eight remaining localities include Ben Tre, Can Tho, Dong Thap, Hau Giang, Tra Vinh and Vinh Long in the southern region, and Hai Phong and Hai Duong in the northern region.
Since a severe strain of the disease started surging through poultry farms in Asia in December 2003, a total of 50 people have died in the region - 36 from Vietnam, 12 from Thailand and two from Cambodia.
A different strain of bird flu, the H7 strain, struck poultry farms in North Korea last month, killing thousands of birds, according to a UN expert who visited the area. H7 is one of two avian flu strains other than H5N1 which can cause illness in humans, but the outbreaks are not as severe as those caused by the H5N1 strain.
Meanwhile, North Korea has culled some 219,000 birds on three farms within a three-mile radius of Pyongyang, the North's capital, in a bid to stop the disease's spread, Hans Wagner, a veterinarian for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.
And, AP-FoodTechnology.com reported last week that chicken breeders in Indonesia were being forced to slaughter their stocks as they fight to prevent the spread of bird flu throughout the country.
According to reports in the Jakarta Post, the Indonesian authorities have set aside IDR750 million to help farmers forced to cull their chicken flocks in South Sulawesi, with a further IDR250 million ringfenced for further compensation claims.
However, with roughly IDR2,000 set aside for each slaughtered bird, farmers will receive less than the market price for their chickens, although only infected birds have been slaughtered thus far and the current vaccination programme should help prevent the disease spreading further.
That said, the epidemic appears to be spreading throughout the province of South Sulawesi, affecting around 128,000 chickens there so far. According to the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture, bird flu has killed 16.23 million birds in the country, with 8.17 million of them in Central Java, the worst-hit province.
