on Benpad was the first Thai killed by the disease in a year, and the first human fatality since an Indonesian woman died last month. The virus has killed at least 44 people in Vietnam, 13 in Thailand, six in Indonesia and four Cambodians. Thawat Suntrajarn, director-general at the Department of Disease Control, said the dead man's son, who had been in close contact with chickens, had so far not tested positive. The H5N1 strain appeared in Hong Kong in 1997, re-emerged in 2003 in South Korea and spread through Asia to Europe's borders. In Africa, Sudan and Tanzania joined Kenya and Comoros in banning some or all poultry imports. But experts say migrating birds could bring bird flu to East Africa's Rift Valley lakes, where the rural poor are already hit by AIDS and malaria. While countries in Europe and Africa struggle to keep the disease out, Asian nations battled new outbreaks. Vietnam, which has been vaccinating millions of poultry, reported its first outbreak in poultry since July, slaughtering 180 ducks in Ninh Quoi A commune. In China, where there have been no human cases, the Foreign Ministry confirmed H5N1 in 2,600 birds at a poultry farm in Inner Mongolia, but said the outbreak had been wiped out. Aphaluck Bhatiasevi of the World Health Organisation in Beijing told Reuters China had culled 91,100 birds and vaccinated 166,000. Taiwan's Agriculture Council said it had found infected birds in a container of rare birds smuggled from China, the island's first case since late 2003.
