July 8, 2004

Vietnam Braces For Second Wave Of Bird Flu

As China and Thailand grapple with fresh bird flu outbreaks, Vietnam is bracing for the possible resurgence of the disease that killed 16 people here earlier this year, an official said Thursday.

China and Thailand undertook massive poultry culls this week after both countries confirmed fresh bird flu outbreaks.

Small, sporadic outbreaks have been reported in six Vietnamese provinces over the past three months, forcing the cull of 10,000 birds. But lab tests have yet to confirm the strain of the virus.

Thursday, Hoang Van Nam of the Veterinary Department said 1,356 poultry samples have tested positive for avian flu out of 13,048 samples analyzed since April.

Farmers in Bac Lieu province, where more than 5,000 chickens from three farms died in an outbreak last month, were warned by provincial health officials not to travel outside their villages for 10 days after the cull.

No human cases have surfaced so far in the latest wave of cases in Vietnam, Thursday's Thanh Nien newspaper quoted Trinh Quan Huan, director of the Department for Preventative Medicine and HIV/AIDS Control and Prevention as saying.

The Health Ministry, however, has instructed local governments to apply measures to protect people who come in contact with poultry and maintain environmental hygiene, he said.

Huan said hospitals designated to treat bird flu victims in February when the disease jumped from birds to people, killing 16, were also ready to receive and treat new victims.

Local governments in the Mekong Delta have been ordered to inspect poultry farms twice a week to monitor for any new outbreak of the disease.