Tests showed that a 23-year-old patient from the northern province of Phu Tho had been infected with the H5N1 virus, the Health Ministry’s Preventive Medicine Department director Nguyen Huy Nga said on February 25.

Nga said the young woman died four days after being admitted to Hanoi’s Hospital of Clinical Medicine and Tropical Diseases with acute pneumonia and dead poultry were reportedly found near the victim’s home.

Nga added that the situation could be exacerbated as the deaths were scattered, increasing the possibility of the virus being transmitted directly to humans.

So far, bird flu has killed 51 out of 105 Vietnamese patients in 35 provinces and cities.

The Ministry of Health has announced that the institute’s vaccine against the H5N1 virus was positive but would need to be tested on humans before going into mass production.