February 14, 2007

Vietnam to lift ban on hatching of ducks, geese
 

Vietnam's government will lift a ban on the hatching of ducks and geese because recent outbreaks of bird flu did not involve vaccinated waterfowl, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

The MARD is working on regulations that would allow farmers to resume hatching and restocking waterfowl beginning March 1 with some conditions, said Hoang Van Nam, deputy director of the MARD's Department of Animal Health.

The government imposed the ban in 2005 in a bid to prevent the spread of bird flu because waterfowl can carry the virus without showing symptoms.

However, vaccinated waterfowl were not the culprits in recent bird flu outbreaks which killed or forced the slaughter of about 40,000 birds in eight provinces in the southern Mekong Delta, Nam said.

He added almost all recent outbreaks came from ducks that were not vaccinated.

Under the new regulations, poultry farmers will have to vaccinate all newly restocked waterfowl, and hatching facilities must be located far from the residential areas, he said.

Although no outbreaks among poultry have been reported in Vietnam for three weeks, Nam warned that the risk of a resurgence of bird flu remains high.

The official stressed the nation is still in peril of having bird flu pandemic as the virus is still present in the environment due to the cool weather as well as the rampant smuggling of birds. 

The H5N1 bird flu virus has killed at least 166 people worldwide, including 42 in Vietnam, since it began ravaging poultry stocks across Asia in late 2003, according to the World Health Organization.

It remains hard for people to catch, but experts worry the virus may mutate into a form that passes easily among humans, potentially igniting a pandemic. So far, most human cases have been traced to contact with infected birds.