2 Vietnam Flu Victims Had Killed Chickens

Two sisters who are Vietnam’s latest bird flu casualties died after killing and eating chickens at their brother’s wedding, officials said. Their brother, who fell ill five days after the feast, also died.

The women’s deaths, announced Wednesday, bring to 10 the total number of people killed by avian flu in Asia, eight of them in Vietnam.

Test results confirmed Tuesday that the sisters, from Thai Binh province, about 60 miles southeast of Hanoi, were infected with the avian flu virus, said Hoang Thuy Long, director of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology.

The women, ages 23 and 30, were admitted to the Institute of Clinical Research for Tropical Medicine on Jan. 13 and died Jan. 22. Their 31-year-old brother, who died Jan. 14, was cremated, so no samples were available for testing, said Long.

“It’s likely they got the virus from the sick chickens,” said Le Dang Ha, director of the clinical research institute.

Bob Dietz, a World Health Organization spokesman, said Wednesday that samples from the two patients would be sent to Hong Kong for verification.

Health ministers from across Asia held an emergency meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, on Wednesday to consider how to stop the disease, but they did not reach a consensus on destroying their livestock.

The WHO insists that mass slaughter of infected poultry is key to controlling the outbreak, but Indonesia has said it doesn’t intend to order its farmers to kill their fowl.