Stop feeding chicken feces to fish
HANOI - The practice of using chicken excrement to feed fish in southern Vietnam is threatening millions of people with bird flu in Ho Chi Minh City and should be stopped, state media said on Monday. The Ho Chi Minh City Law newspaper quoted Dong Nai province residents as saying farmers there threw at least 100 tonnes of chicken excrement a day into Tri An lake, whose waters flow into Dong Nai river and run through the country's biggest city.
"Dropping chicken excrement into Tri An lake during the period when bird flu is evolving into a pandemic is extremely dangerous," Le Hoang Sang, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City's Pasteur Institute, was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
Chicken excrement is one of the main carriers of the H5N1 virus, which can survive in a cool and wet environment for a month and slightly less if in water, he said.
In January, a 9-year-old boy died from bird flu in the Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh after he caught it while swimming in water in which the bodies of infected poultry had been thrown.
"Throwing chicken excrement into the lake must be stopped immediately," Sang said, adding that tests of the fish food would start this week.
About seven million people in Ho Chi Minh City use water purified from the Dong Nai river, Nguyen Van Phu, director of the Saigon Water Supply Co, told the state-run Lao Dong newspaper.
"We ordered a stop to fish feeding that way when this rainy season began but it's difficult if farmers move the excrement in at night," said Vu Thi Tho, People Committee's chairwoman of La Nga commune, 115 km (70 miles) northeast of Ho Chi Minh City.
But the Lao Dong newspaper said poultry waste was still being taken to the area by truck.
Since bird flu arrived in December 2003, 91 people have caught it in Vietnam and 41 have died, fanning experts' fears that the virus could mutate into a form passed easily between people and unleash a global pandemic.
Reuters - November 7, 2005.
Vietnam farmers' apathy highlights fears in global bird flu fight
VAN TRUNG - Vietnam is on the frontline in the fight against bird flu but local farmers appear unconcerned despite global fears over the virus which has killed more than 40 of their compatriots.
With a major international meeting on bird flu opening Monday in Geneva, the apathy of farmers in this north Vietnamese village, which was at the centre of a fresh outbreak, is worrying authorities tasked with trying to contain the spread of the virus.
Van Trung is one of three communes in Bac Giang province, about 70 kilometers (45 miles) north of Hanoi, where new avian influenza outbreaks were on Thursday reported to have killed thousands of birds, mostly ducks.
Bac Giang is the first Vietnamese province to have officially declared a bird flu outbreak this winter. A spurt in infections is expected with the onset of cooler weather in the region where poultry and rice cultivation are the main source of livelihood.
"Attention, epidemic zone," says a banner at the entrance to Van Trung but apparently unconcerned residents say they have no plans to give up raising and consuming poultry.
"I've no fear of bird flu. There are dead ducks around but there has been no human case (in the village). Moreover, my dozen chickens are in good health and my family will eat them," said 67-year-old farmer Hoang Cong U.
His neighbour Le Van Hai's 400 ducks were destroyed in one day by local authorities after the outbreak.
"That cost him about 500 dollars, which is nearly his annual income," said U.
The farmers' casual attitude towards bird flu alarms authorities who are trying to educate the population as fears grow of a global pandemic if the deadly H5N1 virus mutates into a form easily transmissible between humans.
"The people here are most unconcerned over the epidemic and think it's just a matter to be dealt with by state authorities," said Hoang Dang Huyen, director of animal health in Bac Giang province.
"Our greatest worry is that the people leave the whole task of fighting bird flu to us and remain totally indifferent to the risk it poses," Huyen told AFP.
His concern came as the world's paramount agency for veterinary health issued a new appeal on Friday for countries to beef up efforts to combat bird flu.
"The avian influenza virus strain that appeared in Southeast Asia about two years ago is currently circulating endemically in several Asian countries that lack the tools and resources needed to implement the appropriate eradication measures," the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said in Paris.
The OIE, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Health Organisation are staging a meeting in Geneva from Monday to Wednesday on boosting cooperation against bird flu. Delegates from the
World Bank and national governments will also attend the meeting.
While Vietnam started a vaccination programme in August, it covers only 47 of its 64 provinces and cities and leaves out the 10 million poultry in Bac Giang where the latest outbreak emerged, the province's Huyen said.
Alarmed by the outbreak in Van Trung and neighbouring Tang Tien and Yen Lu villages, provincial authorities speedily set about culling 10,000 ducks and imposed a strict quarantine.
"Contamination stems from infected ducks brought in from other provinces such as Ha Tay province, just west of Hanoi, or probably even from China," said Nguyen Van Phuong, vice president of the Viet Yen district people's committee.
Huyen explained: "The small number of poultry here are very important but we still severely lack the necessary veterinary personnel, the funds and the equipment" to carry out mass vaccinations.
"When we don't know the cause of the flu, we first destroy all the poultry in the contaminated villages," Huyen said, but he refused to speculate on what would be done if the outbreak touched all 224 villages in the province.
In neighbouring villages, ducks could still be seen wading the canals and in Hoang Linh ducks and chickens were openly being sold. Many traders were unaware of the fresh outbreaks in Vietnam and China.
Vietnam has seen at least 41 of the more than 60 fatal human infections of the H5N1 strain worldwide since late 2003.
"It's really a fight whose end is nowhere in sight," stressed Le Dac Ta, deputy director of the agriculture department in Bac Giang, where last year one person died of bird flu.
"We must help the people understand the risks from bird flu but we must not cause panic," Ta said.
Agence France Presse - November 7, 2005.
2 Vietnamese infected with bird flu, 1 dies
Two people from Vietnam's capital Hanoi have been infected with bird flu, one of whom has died, a local newspaper reported Monday.
According to imaging diagnosis of the city-based Tropical Disease Institute, two people from the district of Dong Da have been infected with the virus strain H5N1, one of whom died on November 1, Ho Chi Minh City Law newspaper reported.
The alive 25-year-old patient has remained hospitalized at the institute. The person bought a chicken for meal at a local market on October 28, and then developed bird flu symptoms such as high fever and difficult breathing, the report said.
Vietnam has reported no new bird flu patients since late July, Vietnamese Deputy Health Minister Trinh Quan Huan said last week. Up to 91 Vietnamese people have been infected with bird flu since the disease broke out in the country in late 2003, of whom 41 died, he noted.
Vietnam is facing a high risk of large bird flu outbreaks, especially in the southern Mekong Delta and the northern Red River delta, since weather conditions are favorable for the development of bird flu viruses, according to the country's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Since early this year, Vietnam has detected bird flu outbreaks in 35 cities and provinces nationwide, which have killed or led to the forced culling of over 1.5 million fowls, mainly ducks and chickens.
Previous outbreaks starting in December 2003 killed and led to the forced culling of some 46.6 million fowls in Vietnam, causing losses of 3.5 trillion Vietnamese dong (221.5 million US dollars), according to the agriculture ministry.
Xinhua - November 7, 2005.
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