HANOI, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Four members of a Vietnamese family have been hospitalised with symptoms of bird flu after eating sick chickens in the country's south, where the disease re-emerged in poultry earlier this month. The mother and her three children, aged between 3 and 13, all suffered from high fever, coughing and lung infection. They are being treated at Nam Can Hospital in the southern province of Ca Mau. "Their samples have been sent for bird flu tests in Ho Chi Minh City and results should be available soon," an official at the Ca Mau Provincial Animal Health Department said on Saturday. Ca Mau, Bac Lieu and Hau Giang are the three Mekong delta provinces where thousands of ducks and chickens have been slaughtered since the latest bird flu outbreaks were first detected on Dec. 11. Agriculture officials this week said the risk of recurrence elsewhere was high because of migration of wild birds and poultry smuggling. The government has ordered animal health authorities and police to tighten control of poultry transport, particularly in the provinces bordering China. Officials fear the H5N1 avian flu virus could re-emerge during the Lunar New Year festival when poultry consumption rises. The latest outbreaks are the first in Vietnam since August. Bird flu has killed 42 of the 93 people infected in Vietnam. The Southeast Asian country, which has had no reported human infections since late 2005, has the world's second highest death toll after Indonesia, where 57 people have died, according to the World Health Organisation. The WHO says bird flu has killed 157 people out of 261 infected globally since late 2003.
