Vietnam to buy 415 million doses of bird flu vaccine
HANOI - Vietnam will buy 415 million doses of bird flu vaccine to innoculate poultry, state media said, in an attempt to limit the recurrence next winter of a virus has that killed 39 people in Vietnam. The Vietnam News Agency (VNA) said Tuesday that the ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development would purchase the vaccine from China and the Netherlands.
Vaccine would be "supplied to localities based on the number of their poultry stock and not sold on the market," VNA said.
According to the ministry's plan, all breeding stock, poultry raised for meat and eggs, and fighting cocks must be vaccinated against the disease.
The agriculture ministry also ordered that all chickens should be confined in cages and ducks in closed areas after being vaccinated.
Chickens would be vaccinated three times, using a vaccine against H5N2, a less virulent strain of the bird flu virus. Duck would be vaccinated with the proper H5N1 virus.
Hanoi announced last month it would vaccinate poultry nationwide to combat the virus that has killed 39 people here.
The vaccination programme would start in August in southern Tien Giang province and northern Nam Dinh province, before being extended to the whole country later in the year.
Millions of chicken and other fowl have died or been destroyed in bird flu outbreaks in several Asian nations including China since 2003.
The H5N1 strain has killed 39 Vietnamese, 12 Thais and four Cambodians in that time. Health experts have warned it could become a global pandemic if avian flu developed the ability to spread quickly from person to person.
Agence France Presse - July 19, 2005.
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