UPDATE 1-Bird flu kills young child in Vietnam, hits poultry

(Adds details, outbreak in poultry) HANOI, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Vietnam's Health Ministry has confirmed that bird flu virus killed a four-year-old child in the country's north, the first human case in nearly five months, state-run radio said on Thursday.

Separately, the government said the virus had returned to the Mekong delta in the south killing hundreds of ducks and chickens this month.

The H5N1 virus was found in samples taken from the child who died in a Hanoi hospital from high fever and serious pneumonia, the Voice of Vietnam radio quoted a ministry statement as saying.

It did not give the gender, but said the child had eaten chicken, which died of unknown cause, before falling sick in the mountainous province of Son La.

Vietnam's last reported death from the virus was in August when a teenager was killed. An outbreak in poultry was last reported in October, but Son La was not on the government's bird flu watchlist.

The H5N1 virus has killed five of the eight Vietnamese who have caught it this year, and the country's death toll since late 2003 now stands at 47 after the latest casualty.

Separately, the Agriculture Ministry said that the H5N1 bird flu virus has returned to the Mekong delta province of Tra Vinh in the southern region, killing 350 ducks and 430 chickens in five farms in the week ending Dec. 23.

The last outbreak in the area was in early October.

(Reporting by Ho Binh Minh; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

((ho.minh@reuters.com; +844 825 9623; Reuters Messaging: ho.minh.reuters.com@reuters.net)) Keywords: BIRDFLU/VIETNAM DEATH

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