Ten Vietnamese people have died from a strain of influenza that is severely affecting poultry in the region, the World Health Organization officials confirmed on Tuesday. A further four people have been admitted to hospital with suspected avian influenza.Laboratory results confirmed that the victims died from the same strain of bird flu - A(H5N1) - that killed one person in an outbreak in Hong Kong in February 2003.Avian influenza usually only affects birds and its transmission to humans is of great concern. “This is very worrying,” virologist Albert Osterhaus, of Erasmus University in the Netherlands, told New Scientist.
