March 26, 2004

 

 

Vietnam Makes Bird Flu Free Declaration

 

More than half of the 57 provinces infected with bird flu in Vietnam have declared themselves free from the virus, despite another human death reported last week.

 

No outbreaks among poultry have been reported since Feb. 26, and the government is scheduled to decide next week whether to declare the country bird flu-free, Bui Quang Anh, director of the Ministry of Agriculture's Veterinary Department, said Friday.

 

A total of 30 provinces and cities have declared themselves free of the disease, he said.

 

U.N. and other international agencies have warned that Vietnam's bird flu outbreak isn't over and that the country is moving too fast in restocking its poultry.

 

Last week, officials at the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City said tests showed a 12-year-old boy from southern Tay Ninh province had died of bird flu. His death on March 15, Vietnam's first reported human case in more than a month, brought the country's death toll to 16. Eight other people have died in Thailand.

 

A team of experts from the institute visited the village where the boy died earlier this week and could not locate the source of the death, state-controlled media reported.

 

The newspaper Vietnam News on Friday quoted Trinh Quan Huan, director of the Ministry of Health's preventative medicine and HIV control department, as saying the death was an isolated case and that no one in the boy's family or village had been infected.

 

The Vietnamese government has not acknowledged the test results, with a spokesman saying Thursday that the cause of death is still being clarified.

 

Hanoi, the capital, announced on Thursday that it was free of bird flu, said Hoang Van Hung of the mayor's office. He said authorities now allow the transport and sale of poultry in Hanoi, but continue to ban poultry from other provinces.

 

The ban will be lifted when the government declares that Vietnam is rid of the disease, he said.

 

Southern Ho Chi Minh City declared itself free from bird flu last week when leaders there held a chicken-eating fest. But after the announcement of the latest death, officials decided to hold off on allowing poultry farming to resume until June, The Saigon Times reported Thursday.

 

January's outbreak forced the cull of more than 38 million chickens and other fowl, or 15 percent of Vietnam's poultry industry.