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Bird flu hits Vietnam poultry
20/12/2006 11:54 - (SA)
Hanoi - Vietnam has detected the lethal
H5N1 bird flu virus in chickens and ducklings in two Mekong
Delta provinces, the country's first infections since August,
the Agriculture Ministry said.
The virus was found in more than 6 000 dead chickens and
ducklings hatched more than a month ago but not vaccinated
against bird flu, the ministry's Animal Health Department said
in the report seen on Wednesday.
Agriculture Minister Cao Duc Phat has criticised officials
in the delta provinces of Ca Mau and Bac Lieu for failing to
deal with the outbreaks. Dead poultry were found in water
channels early this month but the officials failed to report it
to Hanoi.
The Animal Health Department said all the poultry found
dead had been hatched illegally and tests had confirmed the
presence of the H5N1 virus.
"The risk of bird flu widely spreading in the Mekong Delta
is extremely high because farmers have thrown dead poultry into
water channels for a long time," it said.
In January 2005, bird flu killed a Vietnamese boy in the
Mekong Delta after he swam in a channel where people had dumped
infected poultry.
Temperatures were falling in the southern region
incorporating the delta, which would also help the spread of a
virus that thrives best in cooler temperatures.
Vietnam has been free of human bird flu cases since late
2005. In August, it found the H5N1 virus on a small duck farm
in the delta province of Ben Tre.
An H5 subtype avian flu virus resurfaced in Vietnam earlier
this year, mainly in ducks and wild storks.
Bird flu first arrived in the delta in late 2003 and has
since killed 42 of the 93 people infected in the country, a
human death toll second only to Indonesia's 57, according to
the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The global health body says bird flu has killed 154 people
out of 258 infected globally since late 2003.
Experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that is
easily transmissible among humans and spark an influenza
pandemic that would kill millions.
- Reuters
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