Vietnam's southern region has just embarked on a national program on surveying flu patients and flu virus strains, including deadly bird flu virus H5N1, local newspaper Youth reported Thursday.

The Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City Wednesday started to participate in the six-month program funded by the World Health Organization (WHO), which is carried out nationwide from January to June. The institute is to probe into all available flu viruses and flu patients from southern localities.

Vietnam has so far experienced three outbreaks of bird flu in people, killing 32 local people. In the first outbreak, lasting from Dec. 26, 2003 to March 10, 2004, a total of 23 people were infected with H5N1, of whom 16 died. In the second outbreak from July 19, 2004 to Aug. 26, 2004, four people contracted with the virus, and all of them died.

In the most recent outbreak starting from Dec. 16, 2004, Vietnam has detected 17 local people to contract H5N1, of whom 12 have died, and the five from the northern region have fully recovered.

Bird flu, which has killed and led to the forced culling of more than 1.5 million fowls in its 35 cities and provinces since January, is cooling down. Eight provinces and one city have detected no new bird flu-affected spots in their territories for at least three weeks, said Vietnam's Department of Animal Health.

Source: Xinhua