Bird flu outbreak in Vietnam

Thousands of poultry died of bird flu in the past two weeks in southern Vietnam, the government said today, in the country’s first reported outbreak in a year.

Tests showed that some 5,500 one-month-old ducks and 500 chickens died of the H5N1 bird flu strain in the southern Mekong Delta provinces of Ca Mau and Bac Lieu, said Hoang Van Nam, deputy director of the Department of Animal Health.

Although 42 people have died of H5N1 in Vietnam since late 2003, the southeast Asian country has not reported any human infections since November 2005, and the last reported outbreak in birds was a month later.

The government has largely curtailed the movement of bird flu through a mass vaccination campaign, but Nam warned that this time the virus could spread.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said they were expecting to have some minor outbreaks, but not large scale outbreaks.

“What has been done is the right thing and has been highly successful despite this minor problem which we were expecting to occur, we would expect a few cases,” said Andrew Speedy, FAO representative in Vietnam.

Speedy said Vietnam has carried out all possible measures recommended by the FAO in trying to contain the virus.