year-old woman became the sixth person to die of bird flu in Vietnam since Dec. 30, after eating an infected chicken, officials said. No one else in her family, including her sister who slaughtered the bird, showed any sign of the disease. Thailand on Thursday reported its first confirmed case of bird flu in poultry in two months. Tests performed following the death of a chicken on Jan. 12 showed that some of the 20 birds slaughtered as a precautionary measure carried the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu. Members of the family in eastern Thailand that raised the poultry were also tested for the virus, but were negative. Still, strict surveillance was imposed in a five-kilometer (three-mile) area where the infected birds were found, officials said. Vietnam has banned the import of poultry from neighboring countries and 200,000 pamphlets have been distributed in Ho Chi Minh City advising people to avoid eating birds and coming into contact with them. The government in Hanoi has placed the country on alert and urged greater caution, but the domestic sale and transport of poultry has not been banned in Vietnam as it was last year during the Tet holiday.
