June 28, 2004

 

 

Bird Flu Still Present In Vietnam's Poultry

 

An avian flu virus that hit Asia a few months ago is still present in Vietnamese poultry and might be a potential danger, a veterinary official said.

 

Nguyen Van Thong, a deputy director in the agriculture ministry, told AFP that samples from 10,000 poultry throughout Vietnam had been tested recently and, "a lot of these samples were positive to H5 virus."

 

Scientists could not identify the precise strain of the virus, he said.

 

16 people killed in Vietnam when eight Asian countries were recently struck by the H5N1 strain of avian influenza. 

 

Despite warnings from United Nations health experts that the country was acting prematurely and recklessly, Vietnamese authorities declared on March 30 that bird flu had been eradicated after a 90-day infection period.

 

There had been no major recurrence of the virus. In May, the government announced another outbreak, but stressed it had been brought under control.

 

"Avian flu can come back very easily if we don't take all the necessary measures," Thong said.

 

He asked authorities to keep testing samples regularly, kill all suspected chickens and make sure prevention committees remained on high alert and were transparent with information.

 

He also said imports of poultry from China should be strictly controlled.

 

Anton Rychener, country head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, said he had been told of the situation.

 

"It is no surprise. I understood from other sources as well that the virus has continued to live on at a low pathogenic level in millions of poultry," he said, adding UN agencies had long ago warned the authorities of such a risk.

 

Hanoi was widely criticised for its lack of cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other agencies in tackling its bird flu crisis.

 

The WHO has warned that it could take months, probably years to eliminate H5N1. It had recommended that farmers wait three months from the last infection date before restarting production.

 

But farmers began to restock immediately and all provinces in the country have already restarted production.

 

More than 44 million poultry died or were slaughtered across Vietnam as a result of the disease, which was detected in 57 of its 64 provinces.