January 18, 2005

 

 

Vietnam Curbs Bird Flu With Ban

 

Vietnam has imposed a temporary ban on the import of poultry and poultry products from neighbouring countries in a series of measures to fight the spread of bird flu, which has killed 37 people in Asia, 25 of them in Vietnam.

 

A directive from Prime Minister Phan Van Khai said any imported poultry would be seized and destroyed. Importers would not be compensated and would have to pay for the destruction of the goods, state-run Voice of Vietnam radio said on Tuesday.

 

Khai did not identify any country in the directive but Vietnam mainly imports chickens and eggs from China and state media said border guards have not been able to check all the cargoes which could fuel the spread of the virus.

 

Outbreaks of the lethal H5N1 strain often go undetected in China's poultry population, microbiologist Guan Yi of the University of Hong Kong told Reuters last month.

 

The H5N1 virus has emerged in all of Vietnam's three regions, but southern provinces have been affected the most.

 

The virus has also killed 12 people in Thailand.

 

The human victims are believed to have caught the virus from contact with sick poultry but the World Health Organization says that the virus could mutate if ¨C though there presents a lack of evidence thus far - it reached an animal capable of hosting a human flu virus.

 

That would probably be a pig and if the H5N1 were to merge with a human flu virus, it could produce a strain which would sweep through a human population without the right immunity, killing millions, the WHO says.

 

Vietnam's state media estimated up to eight tons of chickens and an undetermined quantity of eggs have been smuggled into Vietnam from China every day in recent weeks ahead of the country's Lunar New Year festival in early February.

 

Khai called on animal health officials, the police, traffic and market inspectors to reinforce a ban on the transport of poultry in and out of the areas where bird flu has broken out.

 

He also urged authorities to tighten a rule on slaughtering the whole stock if sick poultry is detected and to observe strict quarantine at poultry processing facilities.

 

Inspectors alerted

 

This month Ho Chi Minh City market inspectors were on alert after they caught a truck carrying poultry of unknown origin from the north.

 

The Agriculture Ministry said bird flu had spread to ducks and chickens in two provinces in its central region at the weekend.

 

Officials said 254,000 chickens, ducks and birds have died or were slaughtered in Vietnam since the virus broke out in the beginning of 2004.

 

Vietnam's media said on Tuesday tests on the three bird flu suspect cases in Hanoi showed they did not have the H5N1 virus, but doctors suspected bird flu has killed another patient in the south.

 

Doctors in Hanoi said tests of samples from three people admitted to a Hanoi hospital on January 15 for acute pneumonia showed they were not infected by bird flu, reported the Saigon Giai Phong (Liberation Saigon) daily. One of them died.

 

A 17-year-old patient died on January 15 in the southern province of Bac Lieu from high fever and coughing after eating chicken, the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said. It gave no further details of the patient.

 

The latest outbreak came ahead of next month's Lunar New Year holidays, when demand for poultry is expected to boom.

 

World Health Organisation director in Vietnam, Hans Troedsson, said last week that officials had promised they would carry out necessary culls despite the surge in demand for poultry over the holiday period.

 

"The good news is that so far, the virus does not seem to have mutated and become stronger than last year," Troedsson said.

 

Doctors, worried the death could have been caused by bird flu, have sent samples to Ho Chi Minh City's Pasteur Institute for bird flu testing, it said.

 

Since late 2003, at least 24 people in Vietnam have died after contracting the H5N1 strain. The real figure is thought to be higher as tests were not carried out on some suspected cases.

 

On Monday, Vietnamese researchers began testing an anti-bird flu vaccine on mice. The result is due in three weeks, said the Liberation Saigon daily.

Last year, bird flu destroyed 17 percent of Vietnam's poultry stock of 250 million.