Vietnam, where the bird flu virus has killed more than 40 people, has two new suspected human deaths from the disease, a hospital official said on Saturday. "It's very, very clear that all the critical symptoms pointed to bird flu," Dr Nguyen Ngoc Tai, the director of the Vietnam-Cuba Hospital in Dong Hoi, central Vietnam, told Reuters. The Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper quoted a report from the hospital in the central province of Quang Binh as saying the victims, a 14-year-old girl and a 26-year-old man, had eaten duck and a chicken's egg around a week before they got sick. The girl died on Oct. 23 and the man died on Oct. 26. It said doctors at the hospital said they both had severe respiratory problems, fever and lung infection -- symptoms similar to bird flu. Tai said a third person with symptoms of the disease had been sent to a better-equipped hospital in Hue City, central Vietnam, for treatment. He said his hospital was ill equipped to treat bird flu patients and called for immediate supplies of the antiviral drug Tamiflu and flu vaccines to cope with the situation if more bird flu patients emerged. "There is another case of a 27-year-old man who is suspected to have been infected with bird flu but in a milder form," Tai said.
