Local residents in Vietnam's southern Hau Giang province are worried about the fact that four people have recently died of acute pneumonia with some symptoms similar to those of bird flu.

The four patients died between July 29 and August 2 after showing symptoms of fever, breathing difficulties, cough and hemorrhage, two of them lived in a town having dead chickens, local newspaper Youth reported Wednesday.

The Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City, which is testing samples taken from the patients for bird flu virus H5N1 and SevereAcute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) viruses, said it has yet to produce the results because the testing is very complicated.

A young man called P.D.C in Hau Giang's Long My town died on July 30 after being admitted to a local healthcare facility and then to the Tuberculosis and Lung Disease Center in the neighboring city of Can Tho for pneumonia treatment.

After the young man, who took an entrance university exam in early July, was buried, his elder sister named P.T.N.T exhibited symptoms similar to her brother's. She passed away on August 2 after undergoing treatment at the Can Tho General Hospital and thecenter.

A female cousin of P.T.N.T named P.T.K.C in the province's Vi Thuy district also died of acute pneumonia at the center on July 30.

Earlier, a 24-year-old patient in the district named L.V.T diedon July 29 with similar symptoms.

The Hau Giang Preventive Medicine Center on August 8 collected samples of the victims to send them to the institute for testing for bird flu viruses, the center's director Nguyen Van Muoi said, explaining that chickens suddenly died in a number of farms in theLong My town between July 15 and July 30.

Hau Giang's healthcare agencies have taken preventive measures.They have sprayed chemicals around the house of P.T.H, monitored people who had close contracts with the patients such as their relatives and doctors, and disinfected poultry farms.

Bird flu has hit 11 southern localities, including Can Tho cityand 10 provinces of Long An, Bac Lieu, Hau Giang, Tra Vinh, Dong Thap, Vinh Long, Tien Giang, Ba Ria Vung Tau, Kien Giang and Ben Tre, either killing or leading to the forced killing of nearly 63,000 poultry since late June.

The National Anti-Bird Flu Steering Committee has just launchedan anti-bird flu month in August, aiming to comprehensively deal with outbreaks, and eventually to ensure the localities free of the disease in September.

Bird flu killed 17 percent of Vietnam's poultry population, andclaimed 16 human lives during its outbreak in December 2003. A total of 43.2 million fowls nationwide either died or were culled,causing the local poultry industry to suffer direct losses of 1.3 trillion Vietnamese dong (82.8 million US dollars).

Source: Xinhua