March 1, 2004

 

 

Vietnam Bird Flu Threat Receding

 

The Vietnam authorities have declared the bird flu outbreak in the country to be largely contained in the majority of its provinces.

 

Top veterinary official Bui Quang Anh said no new outbreaks have been reported over the past three weeks in 38 of the 57 affected provinces and that no new infections in poultry have been reported anywhere in Vietnam since last Thursday.

 

But the country will stay vigilant because outbreaks afflicting dozens of chickens have been recurring in some places, he said.

 

"We will continue with the measures to fight the outbreaks," he said.

 

Bird flu has killed or forced the culling of nearly 40 million chickens or other fowl in Vietnam alone. Outbreaks have been reported in 10 countries and territories in Asia, but the virus has jumped to humans only in Vietnam and Thailand, killing a total of 22 people.

 

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization welcomed Vietnam's report, but urged it to work more closely with international agencies to rein in bird flu, communicating more regularly and providing more data.

 

"We believe that there are signs of the disease being contained, but the government does need to remain vigilant because of continuing reports of recurring outbreaks," Hanoi representative Anton Rychener said.

 

Prime Minister Phan Van Khai previously pledged that Vietnam would control the disease before March.

 

However, the World Health Organization said Monday it is too early to predict bird flu's demise.

 

"It is reassuring that we haven't seen the numbers jump tremendously, but we don't think we should be lulled into a false sense of security either," spokeswoman Maria Cheng said in Hanoi.

 

"We still have very serious concerns. All the ingredients for a pandemic exist. We still have co-circulating strains of flu in chickens and humans. There's still a possibility they can recombine."

 

Animal health experts warned at a regional conference on bird flu in Bangkok over the weekend that stopping the epidemic in Asia could take a year or more and cost billions of dollars.

 

The World Bank in Vietnam estimated in a preliminary report that bird flu could cost Vietnam 1.8% of its annual gross domestic product, or US$690 million, as long as the virus doesn't acquire the ability to be transmitted from person to person.

 

Last month, Vietnam partially lifted a nationwide ban on poultry commerce to allow the sale of cooked poultry from unaffected areas, to reduce the economic hardship for small farmers. The exemption did not apply to the two largest cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

 

But the southern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City will restart sales of cooked poultry from unaffected areas Friday, city Agriculture Department director Nguyen Phuoc Thao said.