Vietnam starts mass vaccination

2005-08-01 11:34

Hanoi - Vietnamese authorities are vaccinating three million birds in a southern province, officials said on Monday, as nationwide efforts got underway to contain bird flu, which has killed 41 people in the country.

The trial vaccination started on Saturday in Tien Giang province, in the heart of the fertile Mekong Delta where large-scale poultry farming abounds.

"On the first day, some 5 000 chickens that were at least eight days old were vaccinated against the H5N2 virus and some 2 000 ducks that were at least 15 days old were vaccinated against the H5N1 virus," said Cao Van Hoa, deputy director of the provincial agriculture service.

Some 90 000 birds in one commune of the province would be vaccinated in the first week of the campaign, he said.

Initial effort

However, "we have only received 2.3 million doses (of the three million needed in the initial effort) of the vaccine so far", he said.

Some 20 experts are on the job in Tien Giang, where two other communes will also be covered in the massive campaign, ultimately accounting for some 80 percent of the province's poultry.

Poultry farmers with the largest stocks have been asked to ensure all of their birds can undergo vaccination and to give "written undertakings" that they would not release or eat the vaccinated chickens within 30 days.

They would also have to jot down systematically the clinical signs they notice on forms that would be provided.

A parallel "campaign of information and explanation" was launched, appealing to local people to desist from eating the vaccinated birds for 30 days.

Another similar trial is to begin on Thursday in the northern province of Nam Dinh, which has suffered major bird flu outbreaks.

The campaign will spread to the whole of Vietnam in October, the agriculture ministry said on Monday.

In July, Vietnam bought 415 million doses of bird flu vaccine from China and the Netherlands, fearing that the coming winter could bring major outbreaks of the disease.

Approved

The World Health Organisation's epidemiologist in Hanoi, Peter Horby, said earlier that the organisation approved of the vaccination effort.

"We're very supportive of that activity because we believe it will reduce the risks to humans by reducing the intensity of exposure to the virus," he said.

Overall 60 people have died of the disease since the beginning of the epidemic in 2003, including 12 Thais, four Cambodians and three Indonesians.

Health experts have warned the virus could spark a global pandemic if avian flu develops the ability to spread quickly from person to person.

- SAPA