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HANOI: A Vietnamese man has died of bird flu, the latest case in Asia that underlines the urgency for top health experts drawing up a strategy in Geneva to prevent the virus from spreading to humans around the globe.

Hours after Vietnam reported its latest case, Indonesia said a girl who died yesterday might have had bird flu.

The World Bank says a flu pandemic lasting a year could cost the global economy up to US$800 billion (RM3 trillion) and health experts say it is imperative to control the spread of the H5N1 avian flu virus in animals before it mutates and spreads easily among people.

The World Bank set out the possible financial cost at a three-day meeting in Geneva at which hundreds of experts are drawing up a strategy to prevent bird flu from developing into a pandemic in which millions could die.

In Asia, where 64 people have died of bird flu since late 2003, that need is vital because many farmers live in close proximity to poultry and other livestock.

In Vietnam alone, 42 people have died from H5N1. The government said the virus is hitting earlier and on a larger scale than last year.

The latest case is a 35-yearold man who died late last month after eating a chicken with his family, Nguyen Van Binh, deputy director of the Health Ministry's Preventive Medicine Department, said "Other members of the family are still fine, but there is a poultry market near their house," Binh said.

"This is the first death since the start of this year's epidemic season," Deputy Health Minister Trinh Quan Huan was quoted by the staterun Tien Phong newspaper.

The first Vietnamese death last winter ­ the season when the H5N1 virus seems to thrive best ­ occurred in December.

But World Health Organisation spokeswoman Dida Connor said it was too early to know whether the latest death meant the virus had changed or become more virulent.

In the Indonesian capital, a 16-year-old girl died two days after being admitted to a hos pital suffering from high fever and pneumonia. The girl lived near a bird market. A hospital spokesman said officials were awaiting test results.

"Based on the clinical symptoms, it looks like bird flu," said the spokesman. Nine people in Indonesia are known to have been infected with H5N1, five of whom have died.

China, which has not reported any human cases of bird flu, has asked for international help to double check whether the virus may have killed a 12-year-old girl and made two others sick.

The H5N1 strain of avian influenza has killed half of all people known to have been infected since the virus resurfaced two years ago, worrying governments about a health and economic crisis if the virus acquires the ability to pass between people.

For now, H5N1 is hard for humans to catch and remains a disease of birds, leading to the death or culling of millions of poultry. It has recently spread to eastern Europe and is expected to move into the Middle East and Africa.

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