January 17, 2005

Vietnam PM Urges Strong Measures To Stop Bird Flu Spread

Vietnam's prime minister has ordered authorities to tighten controls to prevent the spread of bird flu, a newspaper reported Saturday, while a health official said the deadly virus may have re-emerged among poultry in the capital.

Prime Minister Phan Van Khai's comments followed a recent string of human cases of avian influenza in Vietnam. Since last month, six people have tested positive for the fatal H5N1 strain. Of those, four have died while two remain in critical condition.

At least 24 people have died in Vietnam from the H5N1 strain of bird flu since January 2004. Health officials declared the country free of bird flu in March but the virus re-emerged late last year.

About 400 chickens and ducks have died and a further 400 have been culled in Hanoi, said Tran Manh Giang, director of the city's animal health bureau. Tests were being conducted to determine if they were infected with H5N1.

Bird flu has infected poultry in 16 of Vietnam's 64 provinces this year, killing or forcing the cull of about 170,000 birds, Thanh Nien newspaper reported. Last year, bird flu outbreaks killed or forced the slaughter of more than 43 million birds.

Khai on Friday instructed border authorities to be more vigilant in their efforts to prevent poultry and poultry products from being smuggled into the country, and said every animal and bird being imported must be subject to strict quarantine checks, reported The People, a Communist Party newspaper.

Vietnam must "take drastic measures to isolate and eradicate new outbreaks when they were just discovered," the newspaper quoted Khai as saying without elaborating.

World health experts fear that bird flu might mutate and create the next influenza pandemic. So far, there has been no concrete evidence of human-to-human transmission of bird flu. Only Vietnam and Thailand have recorded human deaths from the virus in the past year.