Two children from Vietnam´s southernregion have just been hospitalized after exhibiting symptoms of bird flu, local newspaper Labor reported Wednesday.

    A 14-year-old boy and a nine-year-old child from Tra Vinh province were admitted to the provincial hospital after having high temperature, cough and sore throat. The two patients had close contacts with fowls and ate sick chickens, the hospital´s doctor Le Minh Dung said.

    The boy, Le Quang Vinh, and the child, Thach Phung are now in an isolation treatment area. Vinh is in critical condition.

    Several outbreaks of bird flu have recently been detected in Tra Vinh. Notably, three outbreaks in the province killed over 1,000 ducks whose samples were tested positive to the bird flu virusstrain of H5.

    Testing by the Hospital of Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City on Dec. 28 showed that a 16-year-old girl from southern Tay Ninh province is infected with bird flu virus H5N1. The patient now needs respiratory assistance in the hospital. She ate sick chicken.

    According to Vietnam´s Department of Animal Health, the relapse of bird flu has been seen in 23 communes in 20 districts in 11 localities, mainly in the southern region. In early January 2005 alone, the country detected five outbreaks in the four southern provinces of Tien Giang, Hau Giang, An Giang and Ca Mau, and culled over 8,000 fowls. In late December 2003, over 500 chickens in northern Nam Dinh province died of bird flu.

    "From now to mid-February 2005, on the occasion of the Lunar New Year Festival, bird flu situations will progress very complexly. Only by containing the disease in that period, can we eliminate it in the following periods," stated the department´s director Bui Quang Anh.