Beijing: Bird flu re-emerged as a threat in Asia today after China reported the disease killed a woman in Beijing and neighbouring Vietnam said a girl had contracted the virus.

The cases are the first involving humans in the two countries in nearly a year, and mark a reappearance of the H5N1 virus as Asia moves into the cold winter months that typically favour the spread of the virus.

The case in the Chinese capital saw a 19-year-old woman, Huang Yanqing, die yesterday after she fell ill on December 24, the Beijing Health Bureau said.

Huang apparently contracted the disease after she cleaned the internal organs of some ducks she had bought in neighbouring Hebei province, China's official Xinhua news agency reported.

Direct contact with infected poultry, or surfaces and objects contaminated by their faces, is considered the main route of human infection, according to the World Health Organisation s website.

Xinhua reported that 116 people had been in close contact with Huang and that one of them, a nurse, had contracted a fever but recovered.

Huang's death was the first in China since a woman died of the disease in the southern province of Guangdong in February last year.

In Vietnam, authorities reported an eight-year-old girl had tested positive for H5N1 in the north of the country where the virus struck poultry flocks recently during cold and wet winter weather.

The girl in Thanh Hoa province fell ill with serious pneumonia on December 27 after eating poultry and was admitted to a provincial hospital on January 2, local officials said, although they added she was recovering well.
Source : PTI