HANOI - A 27-year-old Vietnamese woman who drank duck blood has the bird flu virus which has killed 49 people in Asia, but is likely to survive, the official Vietnam News Agency reported on Monday.
The woman tested positive for the H5N1 poultry virus after being taken to hospital with high fever on Friday in the central province of Ha Tinh, the agency's Tin Tuc (News) daily said.
Doctors were told the woman had drunk raw duck blood, a popular dish, in late March, but she was stable and might be able to leave hospital in a few days, the report said.
Bird flu swept across much of Asia early last year and has killed 35 people in Vietnam, 14 of them since the disease broke out anew in the southern Mekong Delta in December.
The virus, which has also killed 12 Thais and two Cambodians, does not pass easily from bird to humans and eating infected fowl cooked properly is not dangerous.REUTERS
