April 6, 2006

 

Vietnam finds bird flu in poultry smuggled from China

 

                                                           

Officials have found the virulent H5N1 bird flu virus in poultry smuggled into Vietnam from neighbouring China, state-controlled media reported Thursday.

 

Truong Van Dung, director of the National Institute of Animal Health said at a bird flu meeting in Hanoi on Wednesday (Apr 6) that his agency had found the virus in one of 30 samples taken from poultry smuggled into Vietnam through northern Lang Son province in March.

 

Another test showed 16 samples had bird flu antibodies, a sign that the birds had previously been exposed to the virus, he said.

 

Dung said his institute is conducting tests on 40 other samples taken from chickens smuggled into Vietnam through northern Quang Ninh province.

 

Authorities in Lang Son and Quang Ninh confiscated and destroyed nearly 40 tons of chickens, 126,000 eggs and 1,000 ducks smuggled from China.

 

Earlier this month, Agriculture Minister Cao Duc Phat warned that poultry smuggled from China was a "direct threat" to Vietnam.

 

Vietnam has temporarily stamped out bird flu, with no outbreaks reported in poultry since December, and no human infections since November last year.

 

Bird flu has killed at least 108 people - about 40 percent in Vietnam - since the H5N1 virus began ravaging poultry stocks in late 2003, according to the World Health Organization.

 

Vietnam had urged local authorities in the four northern border provinces, considered major consumers of smuggled poultry, to prevent illegal poultry from being sold.

 

Prime Minister Phan Van Khai also called on customs officials, market inspectors and border guards to clamp down on cross-border trade of poultry and called for severe punishment for anyone caught smuggling birds into the country.