February 24, 2005

 

 

Vietnam pledges change in poultry rearing, appeals for help

 

Vietnam has vowed to implement a nationwide overhaul of the poultry industry as part of efforts to stamp out bird flu, and is considering banning the rearing and slaughtering of animals in big cities.

 

Speaking on the sidelines of an international conference on bird flu in Ho Chi Minh City, officials said hygiene measures already taken by authorities in the south Vietnamese city ought to serve as a blueprint for the rest of the country.

 

A total of 13 people have died from bird flu in Vietnam since the end of December, and international officials have warned of a devastating pandemic unless measures are taken to tackle the virus.

 

Officials in Ho Chi Minh City have ordered small households raising chickens in 11 central districts to slaughter their animals or remove them from the city after registering with the animal health department.

 

A similar decision had already been taken for ducks earlier this year in the city. Local authorities were urged to cull all of the southern business capital's poultry and water fowl between February 18 and the end of 2005.

 

What is at stake is a major change in people's habits.

 

Traditionally, Vietnamese farmers have been used to raising chickens in their backyards, as well as ducks -- now being blamed by experts as reservoirs of the deadly bird flu virus -- in the paddy fields.

 

But now, as the influenza hit the country for the second time since late 2003, Vietnam's government believes it is time to modernize the process.

 

Vietnamese authorities have begun to say they want poultry to be raised only in big farms and slaughtered in major factories, making it easier to control the hygiene conditions.

 

Currently only 10 per cent of Vietnam's poultry is raised in big farms.

 

"We really have to restructure our poultry raising by separating the poultry from densely populated areas," said Nguyen Duy Long, director of animal health in Long An province, one of Vietnam's worst-hit areas.

 

Also, "it will be better to stop the raising of ducks on the paddy fields as they might pollute the water sources," he told AFP.

 

That message was reinforced by Truong Thi Kim Chau, Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City's Animal Health Department.

 

"The ban might be too tough for some poultry owners (inside the city) but the community's health is most important," she said on the sidelines of a visit to a major slaughterhouse arranged for delegates at the bird flu conference.

 

The country has also appealed for technical and financial help to fight the virus now endemic in the region, its chief of animal health said on Thursday.

 

Bui Quang Anh, head of the Agriculture's Ministry's Animal Health Department, said Vietnam's first priority was to expand provincial laboratories on the front line of the war against a disease that has killed 13 people in Vietnam's latest outbreak.

 

One project to boost bird flu testing facilities in 20 provinces would require 40 billion dong (US$2.5 million), while a new central laboratory to research the virus and produce poultry vaccines would cost US$1 million.

 

Vietnam will need the aid to enhance our lab facilities, Anh said on the sidelines of a bird flu conference in Ho Chi Minh City.

 

UN experts say countries hit by the H5N1 poultry virus will need hundreds of millions of dollars from donors to sustain a prolonged fight against the disease now endemic in parts of Asia.

 

Vietnam also needed the expertise of foreign epidemiologists and virologists to help analyse the epidemic, contain it and produce vaccines, Anh said.

 

Hans Troedsson, Vietnam representative of the WHO, said the country was seeking aid from Japan, Denmark, France, Britain as well as multilateral organisations like the World Bank.

 

Vietnam, as all other countries, needs to prepare a national influenza pandemic preparedness plan where particularly technical expertise to support that process is needed, he said.