Vietnam culls ducks after new bird flu outbreak
HANOI - Vietnam, the Asian country worst hit by bird flu, has slaughtered 180 ducks on a farm in the Mekong Delta this week after tests confirmed the country's first outbreak since July, an official said on Thursday.
The ducks on a farm in the province of Bac Lieu tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain which has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003, included 41 Vietnamese, and recently spread to Europe.
"We have just slaughtered and buried all the 180 ducks after tests showed they had the bird flu virus," Nguyen Van Giam, chairman of the People's Committee in Ninh Quoi A commune where the virus was first detected in 2004, told Reuters.
Vietnam, which has had no human cases since August, has been vaccinating poultry nationwide to prevent new outbreaks in winter when the virus appears to thrive best.
Millions of birds have been treated in more than half of the country's 64 provinces since early August. But the campaign was behind schedule due to delays in receiving supplies from China, said Bui Quang Anh, director of the Animal Health Department.
Experts say the feared mutation of the virus into a form that is easily transmitted between humans was most likely to take place in Southeast Asia, where millions of birds have been culled in an attempt to limit the disease's spread.
Deputy Health Minister Trinh Quan Huan said Vietnam would conduct a test of its preparedness for an influenza pandemic later this month, the state-run Tien Phong newspaper said.
The ministry also planned to buy 1,000 respirators and add 1 million tablets of the antiviral drug Tamiflu to its stockpile of 600,000 tablets, he said.
Reuters - October 20, 2005.
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