[Walkingfeather]

....., a 21-year-old man from Thai Binh who caught the virus last month after drinking raw duck blood, a local delicacy.

eER... yeah.

[ex-Texan]

The Vienamese custom of drinking duck blood was not the reason why I posted this news report. Duck blood is consumed in Asia because young men believe, among other weird local superstitions, that it increases virility.

I believe the most important issue revealed by this news report is that a nurse caught the bird flu apparently by casual contact with a single patient. That is why I performed additional research, reading through many other news reports. There is possibly another casual contact that explains how the nurse caught the H5N1 bird flu virus. He visited a village to see his girl friend and the village has had other cases of the bird flu.

Please hold the 'we're all gonna die' sarcasm messages. If I was posting bird flu reports to freak people out I would have pick one of the more reliable items saying bird flu may be a bioweapon. Already there roughly 4,000 such reports posted on the Internet. Example:

Medical Expert: Bird Flu Easily Weaponized