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Hanoi. Vietnam has recorded its first human bird flu death in nearly two years, and although the victim worked at a duck farm the H5N1 virus has yet to be found in poultry there, officials said on Thursday.

Test results confirmed that an 18-year-old man died of the disease on Monday after being hospitalized a day earlier, said Dang Thi Thanh of southern Kien Giang province’s health department.

She said the man was working at a duck farm in neighboring Can Tho City when he fell sick with a high fever and breathing problems. His house has been disinfected and those who were in contact with him remain under surveillance.

No sick or dead poultry have been reported on the two farms where the man worked or among neighboring flocks, but samples have been collected for analysis and the farms have been disinfected, said Huynh Thi Khai Hoan, an animal health officer in Can Tho City. However, many of the ducks on the farms where the man worked had already been sold.

H5N1 rarely infects humans and usually only those who come in direct contact with diseased poultry, but experts fear it will mutate into a new form that passes easily from person to person. Other human bird flu cases have been reported recently in Cambodia, Indonesia, Egypt and China.

The World Health Organization says globally there have been 341 human deaths from 578 confirmed bird flu cases since 2003. About 60 of those deaths occurred in Vietnam.

Before Monday, Vietnam had not seen a human bird flu death since April 2010, according to the Ministry of Health’s Preventive Medicine Department.

The government has called for stepped-up efforts to fight bird flu as a massive movement of people and poultry begins ahead of the Lunar New Year festivities, which start next week.

Associated Press