June 20, 2008
 

Vietnam promotes sustainable vaccination to stamp out bird flu

Health experts in Vietnam said during a three-day conference that a sustainable vaccination is needed to avoid or control bird flu epidemic.

Currently, the government's goal is to scale back the outbreaks, preventing the transmission of the virus to humans and reduce the burden of vaccination.

The surveillance system established when the disease was first detected in Vietnam in 2003 has brought down the number of bird flu outbreaks this year and in 2007 compared to 2004 and 2005, officials said.

The cutback has been attributed to Vietnam's strict preventive measures, specifically on vaccination and poultry transport management.

However, statistics show that although recent outbreaks are small in scale and few in numbers, they are scattered over different areas throughout the north, the centre and the south.

Testing of poultry, especially waterfowl, samples indicated that the bird flu virus circulation rate in poultry is still high.

Therefore, experts reiterate that vaccination still plays a crucial role.

Jeff Gilbert, Avian Influenza Programme team leader, UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Vietnam, said the country should continue to vaccinate and the programme will probably be needed for the next three to five years or longer.

Since this strategy is costly, it has to be done on such a large scale, Gilbert said.

One of the biggest challenges aside from improving surveillance is a change of farming systems. The system should be driven by processes, by consulting with the farmers from their point of view. Things that will help the farmers move in that direction are incentives where profits are involved, Gilbert explained.