A 21-year-old man from Vietnam´s northern Thai Binh province has just been confirmed to contract bird flu virus strain H5N1, while his younger sister has been suspected of being infected with the disease, local newspaper Youth reported Friday.

    Initial testing on Thursday showed that samples from Nguyen Sy Tuan from Thai Thuy district, who was admitted to the Tropical Disease Institute in Hanoi capital on Feb. 22 after having high temperature, were tested positive to the virus, the paper quoted Pham Van Diu, director of the Thai Binh Preventive Medicine Center,as saying.

    Tuan is facing difficulty in breathing, the director said, adding that the patient´s 14-year-old sister named Nguyen Thi Ngoan is now under treatment at the Thai Binh Hospital since she has a fever and is suspected of contracting H5N1.

    Tuan is the third case of bird flu infection detected in Thai Binh so far this year. In January, two brothers from the province were found to be infected with H5N1, of whom one died, and the other has fully recovered. The two brothers ate a dish made from duck´s raw blood at a local market before exhibiting symptoms of bird flu.

    Vietnam has so far experienced three outbreaks of bird flu in human, killing 32 local people. In the first outbreak, lasting from Dec. 26, 2003 to March 10, 2004, a total of 23 people were infected with H5N1, of whom 16 died. In the second outbreak from July 19, 2004 to Aug. 26, 2004, four people contracted with the virus, and all of them died.

    In the most recent outbreak starting from Dec. 16, 2004, Vietnam has detected 18 local people to contract H5N1, of whom 12 have died, five have fully recovered, and one remains hospitalized.

     Bird flu, which has killed and led to the forced culling of more than 1.5 million fowls in its 35 cities and provinces since January, is cooling down. A dozen of localities have detected no new bird flu-affected spots in their territories for at least three weeks, according to Vietnam´s Department of Animal Health.