February 19, 2009

Vietnam's Department of Animal Health warned that new bird flu outbreaks would be likely to occur across the country unless drastic measures were taken especially in the Red River and Mekong Delta regions.

At a meeting in Hanoi, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) deputy minister Diep Kinh Tan ordered relevant agencies and localities to take urgent measures to control dangerous diseases in poultry and cattle, particularly bird flu and foot-and-mouth disease (FMD).

Animal health department director Bui Quang Anh said lack of tough supervision and husbandry planning, and in particular inappropriate and slow implementation of vaccination for poultry were to blame for the outbreaks.

Anh said recent outbreaks of bird flu and FMD were discovered in poultry and cattle that had not been vaccinated and most of the outbreaks were detected quite late.

In 2008, the ministry allocated 250 million doses of vaccine to localities but they reported that only around 50 percent of the vaccines had been used.

Diep asked localities to quickly finalise master plans to ensure safer breeding and tighten supervision over poultry farms and slaughterhouses as well as strictly handle breeding activities further spread the epidemic.

The ministry reported that since early 2009, bird flu had hit nine provinces nationwide so far, including Thanh Hoa, Thai Nguyen, Ca Mau, Soc Trang, Nghe An, Hau Giang, Quang Ninh, Bac Ninh and Quang Tri. Almost 33,000 fowls were culled.

Meanwhile, FMD has affected five provinces, namely Long An, Kon Tum, Hoa Binh, Son La and Quang Binh, affecting more than 1,000 cows and buffaloes.