China to vaccinate 14 billion poultry against bird flu

VIETNAM slaughtered thousands of birds in its two largest cities yesterday while China vowed to vaccinate its entire stock of 14 billion poultry against bird flu, with the government promising to help pay for the process.

The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu is endemic in parts of Asia and has killed more than 60 people.

The virus is hard for people to catch, but experts fear it could mutate into a form which can be passed from person to person.

Officials in Vietnam were racing against time to meet the government’s deadline of Tuesday for ending poultry raising in the capital Hanoi and in Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s largest urban centre.

Police, veterinarians and health workers, wearing masks and protective clothes, gathered at duck farms on the edge of Hanoi where outbreaks were detected earlier.

“We are carrying out the city’s decision to kill all the poultry inside the city,” veterinary official Phi Thanh Hai said as 3,500 ducks quacked in bags after being rounded up at a pond.

Poultry farmers said they got compensation of 15,000 dong (€0.80) for each destroyed duck, which cost 40,000 dong (€2.15) to raise. Forty-two people have died from bird flu in Vietnam.

China, battling several outbreaks of H5N1, set itself the tough target of vaccinating billions of birds.

Jia Youling, director-general of the Agriculture Ministry’s veterinary bureau, said the central government would cover 50-80% of provinces’ costs.

No timetable has been given for the inoculations.

The nine outbreaks across China this autumn “have been basically brought under control,” Jia said.

Migratory birds have carried the virus to Europe and Kuwait and experts fear it will soon spread to Africa.

Meanwhile, Britain has said it believed an outbreak last month in a quarantine centre was caused by birds imported from Taiwan, rather than a parrot from Suriname, which has no reported cases of H5N1.

More than 50 birds from Taiwan died at the centre. Officials said tissue samples from the finch-like mesias were pooled so it was impossible to say how many had been killed by H5N1.

Animal welfare minister Ben Bradshaw said: “The very strong conclusion of this epidemiological report is that it came via Taiwan.”