Nagasaki University, along with Vietnam's state-run sanitary and epidemiological research institute, will set up a research laboratory in Hanoi on March 17 to look into the mechanisms of bird flu and other infectious diseases, university officials said.
Vietnam has the world's largest number of bird flu victims.
The deadly H5N1 virus has killed nearly 100 people since late 2003 in seven countries -- Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, China, Cambodia, Turkey and Iraq -- according to the World Health Organization, which reports only laboratory-confirmed cases.
Nagasaki University will station two professors -- one specializing in virology and the other in bacteriology -- at the lab.
The establishment of the facility is part of the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry's ongoing efforts to bolster research bases on infectious diseases.