Six new bird flu cases in Vietnam

Another six cases of bird flu have been reported in Vietnam, taking the total since December 2004 to 61. Of these 18 have died.

According to Vietnam's Institute for Clinical Research/Tropical Medicine, the six latest cases are being treated in a Hanoi hospital.

One doctor at the hospital, who had been taking samples from carriers of the H5N1 virus has now apparently also developed a fever himself and is suspected of being infected.

The hospital is also treating two women found last month to have been infected with H5N1.

The H5N1 virus has killed 18 Vietnamese since Dec. 16, 2004, when the disease resurfaced, taking the country's toll to 38 since it appeared in late 2003.

Twelve Thais and four Cambodians have also died.

Bird flu which first emerged in the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam in late 2003, spread to the northern region where the virus appears to have developed rapidly during the winter.

Scientists greatest concern is that the avian flu, which is infectious in birds but does not spread easily among humans, could mutate into a form capable of generating a pandemic, in which millions of people without immunity could die.