A 10-year-old girl from Vietnam's southern Long An province died of bird flu on Sunday night, raising the total bird flu fatalities in the country since late December to 12.

"The patient, born in 1995, died at 20:00 on Jan. 30. Earlier, she was confirmed to contract the bird flu virus H5N1 by the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City," a doctor at the city-based Pediatric Hospital No. 1 in Ho Chi Minh City said on conditions of anonymity.

The girl, who was admitted to the hospital on Jan. 20 after suffering high fever and breathing difficulty, had had contact with dead chickens, the doctor said, noting that the hospital is now treating a patient from southern Tra Vinh province, who is suspected to contract H5N1.

On Sunday, two people, a local 39-year-old man from central Quang Nam province, and a 25-year-old Cambodian woman, who lived in Cambodia's Kampot province adjacent to Vietnam's southern Kien Giang province, died after exhibiting bird flu symptoms. The Pasteur Institute is testing samples from the two patients to see whether they were infected with H5N1 or not.

The Vietnamese man died in a hospital in central Da Nang city. The Cambodian woman, who lived in a bird flu-hit area, had slaughtered fowls for meal two weeks before being admitted to the Kien Giang hospital in Vietnam on Jan. 28. Before her death, her younger brother died with bird flu symptoms, according to local newspaper Young People on Monday.

On Jan. 29-30, seven people from Vietnam's northern region were admitted to the Tropical Disease Institute in Hanoi capital with symptoms of bird flu infections. Along with the seven suspected cases, the institute is treating a total of 13 patients, including two H5N1 carriers. Of the carriers, Han Ngoc Manh, 30, from northern Hung Yen province will be discharged from the institute this week, local doctors said.

Since Dec. 28, a total of 16 people in Vietnam have been reported to contract H5N1, of whom 12 people, 10 from the southern region and two from the northern region, have died. Altogether, 32bird flu patients in the country have died since the disease started hitting it in December 2003.

Since January 2005, bird flu has stricken 31 cities and provinces in Vietnam, including nine in the northern region, killing and leading to the forced culling of some one million poultry.

Source: Xinhua