Vietnam to host regional meet on bird flu in Feb
HANOI - Vietnam will host a regional meeting on bird flu late in February, drawing delegates from countries hit by the disease as well as from UN agencies and major donors, officials said on Monday. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Organisation for Animal Health will sponsor the meeting in Ho Chi Minh City from February 23 to 25, FAO representative in Vietnam Anton Rychener said. "It will be the following (up) of last year's conference," Rychener said.
"Participants will discuss the control of the outbreak and the measures that could possibly be undertaken" in the future, he said. In February 2004, experts from 23 countries and agencies met in Bangkok to address issues including veterinary services, surveillance and biosecurity, carcass disposal, vaccination, the economic effects of bird flu and rehabilitation. The meeting in Vietnam's southern economic capital will evaluate the achievements of control measures implemented in the last 12 months and review scientific advances in the understanding of the deadly influenza that has killed a total of 44 people in Vietnam and Thailand.
Officials from bilateral and multilateral donors as well as the World Health Organisation (WHO) will also attend. No immediate confirmation could be obtained from Vietnam's Government. Last year, experts said the bird flu crisis was posing "unprecedented" threat. Bird flu cases in Vietnam have grown since December at around the same rate as last year but scientists are carefully watching for any change in the way the virus is spreading.
A report by Thai and US researchers published recently suggested that human to human transmission of the virus had likely occurred and experts are on the look out for the virus mutating -- which they warn could lead to a global epidemic.
Agence France Presse - January 31, 2005
Vietnam reports 12th Human bird flu death; thai cases spread
Bird flu in Southeast Asia is spreading as Vietnam reported its 12th human fatality since December and Thailand's government said infected poultry was found in two more provinces. A 10-year-old girl from Vietnam's southern Mekong Delta province of Long An died late yesterday from the H5N1 virus, said Ha Manh Tuan, deputy director of Children's Hospital No. 1 in Ho Chi Minh City. Thailand reported bird flu in two northern provinces, after fighting cocks that died this month tested positive for the H5N1 strain, bringing to five the number of provinces with cases this year, the government said today.
``The virus is widely spread among poultry,'' said Hans Troedsson, the World Health Organization's chief representative in Vietnam, in a telephone interview on Jan. 28. ``We'll never be able to stamp out these outbreaks among humans if we don't control it in the poultry.'' The number of provinces and cities in Vietnam reporting cases of poultry dying or being culled because of the bird flu virus since Jan. 1 reached 31 out of a nationwide total of 64, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said. More than 940,000 poultry have died or been culled since Dec. 1, according to ministry figures.
Thailand has reported cases in five provinces this year, including two today. Tests showed 78 fighting cocks that died Jan. 19 in Uttaradit province, 490 kilometers (305 miles) north of the capital, Bangkok, to have been infected with the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, Thailand's Department of Livestock Development said today on its Web site. Thirty-seven birds that died Jan. 25 in Nakhon Sawan province, 240 kilometers north of Bangkok, were also infected with the virus, the department said.
Preventive Measures
Thailand, Asia's second-biggest poultry exporter, will tomorrow resume nationwide testing of poultry for avian influenza in an effort to prevent an epidemic. Thailand culls all poultry within 1 kilometer of where an infected bird is found. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization will recommend to Vietnam that the transportation of live poultry and sale or slaughter of live birds in markets be prohibited, Anton Rychener, the FAO's Vietnam representative, said Jan. 28. Ho Chi Minh City, the nation's largest city, is using mobile police units to search for any poultry brought in that may have avoided checkpoints and is considering banning the raising of poultry in the city, according to the government animal health office in Ho Chi Minh City.
Suspected Cases
Seven suspected bird flu patients were admitted to the Institute for Clinical Research in Tropical Medicine in Hanoi over the weekend, bringing the number of confirmed or suspected cases at the institute to 13, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported today. Two suspected bird-flu patients were admitted to Ho Chi Minh City hospitals over the weekend, Tuoi Tre said.
A woman from Cambodia who was being treated for bird flu symptoms at a hospital in Vietnam's Kien Giang province, which is on the Cambodian border, died over the weekend, Thanh Nien newspaper reported today. The woman, whose sibling died recently with similar symptoms, may have killed poultry about two weeks ago, the newspaper said. Vietnamese authorities and the WHO are also investigating whether a 42-year-old man in Hanoi, who has recovered, may have caught the H5N1 virus from his older brother, who died Jan. 9. A family meal where a dish containing raw duck blood and raw organs was served is also being considered as a potential source of the brothers' infections.
``Limited human-to-human transmission, as seen during similar events in the past, cannot be ruled out at this stage,'' the WHO said. ``All such clusters of cases, closely related in time and place, require urgent investigations to determine whether the epidemiological behavior of the virus might be changing in ways that could favor the onset of a pandemic.''
Bloomberg - January 31, 2005
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