Vietnam has reported four more suspected human cases of the bird flu that has infected poultry in three Asian countries.
China has banned imports of chicken and the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of an increasingly urgent situation.
Vietnam already has 14 suspected human cases of avian flu, with 12 deaths; one of the four suspected new cases has died.
WHO experts and Vietnamese health ministry officials are discussing how to contain the outbreak. WHO lab tests have confirmed that the three people who died were infected with Influenza A, or the H5N1 flu strain.
Bird flu has infected millions of chickens in Vietnam, South Korea and Japan, prompting those nations to order huge slaughters at poultry farms.
A central Taiwan farm slaughtered 20,000 chickens Thursday after some of the birds tested positive for a milder strain of the flu.
Beijing halted poultry imports from Vietnam, South Korea and Japan to the Chinese mainland, following similar measures by its Hong Kong territory and by Cambodia earlier this week.
AP