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Hanoi: Bird flu has been spreading among ducklings in Vietnam's northern region this week, the government said on Sunday, as the country also copes with its first confirmed human cases since November 2005.
Ten ducklings died and 80 others fell sick in a farm in Thai Binh province on Thursday, and tests found they had the H5N1 virus, the Animal Health Department said in a report.
On Saturday the country had reported its second human case of the virus in less than a month, after a year and a half with no new human cases. Both victims were in hospital in stable condition, officials said.
A total of 42 Vietnamese have died since the virus re-surfaced in Asia in late 2003.
The infection in ducklings in Thai Binh means the virus has spread to poultry in 14 provinces plus the Mekong delta city of Can Tho since early May.
Regarding recent human cases, doctors reported on Saturday to a government meeting on bird flu prevention on two men, from the northern provinces of Vinh Phuc and Thai Nguyen.
The first patient, from Vinh Phuc, helped slaughter chickens at a friend's wedding early last month before he developed high fever. The second, a worker in a poultry slaughterhouse outside Hanoi, became sick on May 26.
Both were taken to a hospital in Hanoi where their conditions have stabilised.
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