August 18, 2011

Vietnam forewarns bird flu reoccurrence

Cities and provinces have been warned by the Vietnamese Animal Health Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development regarding the reoccurrence of bird flu outbreak.

The disease outbreak will reoccur unless the authorities in provinces and cities tighten control over their poultry flocks and poultry transport to detect early infected animals, said Hoang Van Nam, head of the department.

The bad weather conditions and decreased resistance to the disease of animals will help the bird flu to spread fast, Nam noted.

Currently the disease break has occurred in two central provinces of Nghe An and Quang Tri, infecting 9,000 poultry. The ministry already granted vaccine RE5 for the provinces to fight against the disease.

The ministry will also grant eight million bird flu vaccine doses from the 50 million doses for southern provinces.

Nam informed that the country successfully eradicates the foot-and-mouth and green-ear diseases. As of August 16, there was no case of infection with the two diseases in pigs and cattle nationwide.

The ministry will import 50 million doses of foot-and-mouth disease vaccine soon, Nam added.