July 8, 2004

Vietnam's Southern Provinces Asked To Strengthen Bird Flu Prevention

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) in Vietnam has asked the Mekong delta and southeastern provinces to increase inspections in order to promptly discover hot spots of bird flu, prevent the transportation of infected poultry as well as closely monitor poultry slaughter.

Addressing the conference in Can Tho province on Tuesday, Dr. Bui Ba Bong, MARD Deputy Minister, assured the meeting that there is no recurrence of bird flu in Viet Nam. There were only scattered cases of dead poultry infected with flu virus that had not been cleaned up since the previous outbreak of the disease, Bong told the conference.

He suggested relevant sectors exert close coordination to promptly prevent any return of the flu.

Quantity is not the primary factor for the restoration of the country's poultry herd, Bong noted. He stressed localities must follow the Veterinary Department's technical procedures, particularly the management of disease free poultry breeds.

The MARD asked provinces and cities to prepare sufficient medicine, facilities and capital to cope with a new outbreak of the disease. Additionally, lessons should be learned from HCM City's poultry slaughter to prevent the transmission of the disease from poultry to people.

Participants at the conference proposed the upgrading of the bird flu control programme into a national programme to achieve higher efficiency.

The bird flu began devastating the country at the end of December last year. More than 43 million poultry were culled.

According to the MARD, the epidemics' total cost to farmers and processors was about 3 trillion VND (190 million USD).