A three-year-old boy is the 93rd patient to have contracted bird flu (avian flu) in Vietnam since December 2003. Vietnamese Health Ministry Officials say the boy, from the Cai Lay district, got ill on 26th November and is now in hospital in Ho Chi Minh City.
Of the 93 people who have caught bird flu in Vietnam since December 2003, 66 have been this year. Out of the 93, 42 have died.
Authorities in Vietnam are considering destroying all the poultry stocks in the whole country. Over one million birds have been culled over the last six weeks.
Bird flu is still a disease that rarely infects humans. Experts believe the virus (H5N1 strain) will eventually mutate and spread rapidly among humans. The big question is - when will this happen? It could mutate gradually, on its own; this would take a long time (several years). However, if the H5N1 strain exchanges genetic material with a normal flu virus it could happen much more quickly. In order to exchange genetic material with a human flu virus, the H5N1 virus strain would have to infect a human who has the human flu.
(The H5N1 bird flu virus strain is the most virulent one - the most deadly one).
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