August 31, 2004

242 Ducks Suspected Of Carrying Bird Flu Culled In Vietnam

Vietnamese authorities have culled 242 ducks taken from a busy Hanoi market that were suspected of carrying the deadly bird flu virus.

The sick ducks were discovered on Friday by the Long Bien market management board as a truck brought them to the market, according to Nguyen Thi Uyen, the board's director.

''Forty-seven of the ducks had already died when we found them. We decided to cull the rest, many of which seemed to be sick, although we did not know which kind of disease they contracted yet,'' she said.

The ducks were from Ha Tay, 11 kilometres west of Hanoi, where two children were confirmed to have died from H5N1 earlier this month.

''After we killed the ducks, all the necessary decontamination measures were implemented for the entire market area,'' Uyen said.

''We have taken five samples from these ducks, of which two were from live ducks and three from the dead ones,'' said Huynh Quoc Hoa, a senior officer from Hanoi Veterinary sub-department.

These test samples have been sent to a laboratory in the Central Veterinary Centre with results expected in seven to 10 days, Hoa said.

Bird flu has made a comeback in Vietnam since the government announced it had wiped out the disease on March 30. Since then, 11 provinces have reported strains of the virus in poultry, with more than 50,000 dying or having to be culled in an effort to stop the disease from spreading.