Vietnam on learning curve in vaccination drive
NAM DINH - Efforts to vaccinate chickens and ducks in this Vietnamese province show the challenges faced by authorities trying to stop bird flu, which has ravaged poultry and killed 60 people across Asia.
Experts say a new campaign's success or failure will determine whether Vietnam can halt the spread of bird flu, which has killed 41 people here, more than in any other country.
"We cannot eradicate the virus immediately," says Hoang Van Nam, deputy director of animal health of Vietnam. But he says it can be reduced "day by day, year by year."
The effort did not seem to get off to a good start when Vietnamese officials, international experts and reporters saw a bumbling attempt at vaccinating wildly flapping chickens at a backyard coop in Nam Dinh town, 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Hanoi.
But officials later took heart at a more orderly exercise with ducks beside a muddy rivulet in the province's Giao Chau town, another 40 kilometres away.
The campaign in Nam Dinh is the second phase of a trial that began in southern Vietnam's Tien Giang province in the Mekong Delta on July 30.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation representative in Hanoi, Anton Rychener, said the trial vaccinations were designed by the FAO in cooperation with Vietnam's department of animal health.
The World Health Organisation's epidemiologist in Hanoi, Peter Horby, has said the organisation approved of the vaccination effort.
"We're very supportive of that activity because we believe it will reduce the risks to humans by reducing the intensity of exposure to the virus," he said.
It comes as the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development says fresh outbreaks occurred in Hanoi and three southern provinces, where almost 4,700 infected chickens are reported to have been culled in the past two weeks.
Nam Dinh was chosen as a pilot province because it is one of the areas most affected by the epidemic which began in 2003. Officials plan to vaccinate 80 percent of 5.7 million poultry in Nam Dinh against both the H5N1 and H5N2 strains of the virus.
Last year, two people from the province died of the virus and more than 800,000 chickens and ducks were destroyed.
Truong Quang Nho, 52, who owns the flapping chickens that were among the first to be jabbed, says: "I appealed to the government to come and vaccinate my chickens because I want to avoid huge losses from the disease."
The tens of millions of people like him, who together own 218 million chickens and ducks in Vietnam, are worried about the spread of the disease and are fed up with demands to cull their stocks whenever bird flu strikes.
Pham Minh Dao, director of the veterinary department of Nam Dinh, says the current drive mainly targets ducks, the major transmitters of the disease because most are allowed to range freely.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation's coordinator for avian influenza in Vietnam, Astrid Tripodi, says: "It is very difficult to get all the scavenging ones vaccinated."
Some experts fear that there are no penalties for farmers who decide not to get their poultry innoculated. However, Tripodi says even the small farmers seem highly motivated and informed about the need to vaccinate, fearing repeated outbreaks of the disease.
The small farmers' enthusiasm is in evidence at another informal vaccination station set up at the entrance to a disused volleyball court in Giao Chau town, where people trickle in clutching birds in small wire cages.
"I hope to open a bigger farm to raise poultry," says Tran Van Chan, 37, after four of his chickens were given needles.
"But I want to be sure the conditions are good. I was very much afraid last year. I really hope we can control this epidemic."
Poultry farmers have been told not release or eat the vaccinated birds within 30 days.
The campaign will spread to the whole of Vietnam in October, but experts call for drawing lessons from the pilot project before proceeding with the drive on a larger scale.
Vietnam plans to vaccinate about 80 percent of its poultry.
In July, the country decided to buy 415 million doses of bird flu vaccine from China and the Netherlands, fearing the coming winter could bring major outbreaks of the disease.
However, Vietnam has only set aside about 30 million dollars for the nationwide campaign, and many experts think the funding is not enough.
They have warned that the virus could spark a global pandemic if it develops the ability to spread quickly among humans.
Agence France Presse - August 07, 2005.
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