HANOI, Jan. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- A 35-year-old woman from Vietnam's southern province of Tra Vinh was hospitalized on Tuesday due to being suspected of suffering bird flu, according to local newspaper Saigon Liberation on Wednesday.

    The woman named Nguyen Thi Muoi Hai was admitted to the Hospital of Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City with symptoms ofhigh fever and lung infection, a fortnight after she killed and ate sick chicken.

    The patient, who needs respiratory assistance in the hospital, also lives in bird flu-hit area, said the paper.

    To date, at least 15 local people have been hospitalized for being suspected of having contracted virus H5N1. Of the cases, four were confirmed to have contracted virus H5N1. Included are an18-year-old girl from southern Tien Giang province in serious health condition, a 16-year-old girl from southern Tay Ninh province, a nine-year old boy from southern Tra Vinh province, anda six-year-old boy in southern Dong Thap province who died.

    To control the spread of the disease, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on Tuesday issued an anti-bird flu urgent message, asking localities to take measures to tighten monitoring poultry flocks, intensify propaganda via media, update information on new outbreaks and the number of dead, cull fowls every day, slaughter all sick poultry, and ban transporting of poultry and their products out of the disease-hit areas.

    According to the Department of Animal Health, since last December, the relapse of bird flu has been seen in 13 localities across the country, killing or leading to the forced culling of around 103,000 fowls.

    In late March 2004, Vietnam declared an end to the bird flu that killed 17 percent of its poultry population and claimed at least 21 human lives during the previous outbreak starting in December 2003. A total of 43.2 million fowls nationwide either died or were culled, causing a total loss of 1.3 trillion Vietnamese dong (82.8 million US dollars) to the local poultry industry. Enditem