Bird Flu Kills Boy; Human Death Toll at 20

A 13-year-old Thai boy died of bird flu, bringing to 20 the number of known human fatalities from the disease that has led to the slaughter of millions of chickens and ducks across Asia.

The boy died at a hospital in the country’s northeast, where he’d been in intensive care after testing positive for the virus Thursday, said Charal Trinvuthipong of the Public Health Ministry. He became sick 10 days after his family’s chickens started dying. After ravaging poultry flocks, the disease is now hitting other species, killing a heron in Cambodia and possibly a leopard and cranes in Thailand and pheasants in Taiwan.