October 19, 2004

Vietnam May Use Vaccines to Battle Bird Flu

Vietnam is preparing for the use of vaccines to cope with bird flu, which has reappeared in some southern provinces. Experts have been sent to Hong Kong for research and testing effects of the vaccines.

Vietnam's Animal Health Department has sent its cadres to Hong Kong to study the effective use of vaccines there. However, they have found it difficult to apply the vaccination because the region's way of raising fowls is different from that of Vietnam's. Most poultry in Hong Kong, which are imported from the Chinese mainland, are raised in urban areas.

"We're using vaccines against bird flu on a trial basis in several chicken farms, both in southern and northern regions. If it is necessary to vaccinate fowls on a large-scale, we will import the vaccines from the Netherlands," the department's director Bui Quang Anh revealed.

He said Vietnam was soliciting opinions of scientists and experts regarding the safe and effective use of the vaccines as recommended by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health. While reiterating that the culling of infected fowls is the best way of ultimately eradicating bird flu, the two organizations agreed that vaccination is the other alternative for countries that wish to stamp out the disease.

Vietnam, in the last two weeks, has detected some 6,000 sick and dead fowls in the four southern provinces of Long An, Soc Trang, Tien Giang and Ben Tre. Some specimens taken from 850 infected chickens in Soc Trang have tested positive for the bird flu virus strain of H5.

In late March 2004, the country declared an end to bird flu that had killed 17 percent of its poultry population since its previous outbreak last December. A total of 43.2 million fowls nationwide either died or were culled, causing direct losses of 1.3 trillion Vietnamese dong (82.8 million US dollars) to the local poultry industry.