Hanoi, Mar 19: A new type of pneumonia has killed a second person in Vietnam, bringing the global death toll to 10 from a disease that has infected hundreds of people around the world. A 66-year-old French doctor at the Vietnam-France hospital in Hanoi died early today, hospital general manager Lucien Blanchard said. ''He died at 2345 hrs IST,'' Blanchard told a news agency. On Saturday, a nurse at the same hospital died after she had attended to a US businessman with the disease. The American, who visited Hanoi after travelling to Shanghai and Hong Kong, was flown to Hong Kong for further treatment and died last Thursday. A Hong Kong newspaper reported today that the outbreak had been traced by doctors in the city to a deadly virus. Termed as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), the global outbreak is believed to have started in China in November.
Singapore, Canada, Germany and Taiwan have also reported cases of the illness, which starts with influenza-like symptoms. Bureau Report