~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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Vietnam hopes to end bird flu outbreak this month

HANOI - Vietnam said on Monday it hoped the drastic measures it is taking will stifle its latest outbreak of bird flu, which has killed 13 people in a month and spread to half the country, by the end of this month. Last week's decision to stop the raising of all waterfowl and an expected slowdown in poultry transport after this week's Tet Lunar New Year festival should help, senior Agriculture Ministry official Bui Quang Anh said.

"There is a possibility that the series of the epidemic outbreaks this time would end in late February," Anh, director of the ministry's Animal Health Department, told a news conference. "In March and April we will carry out swiftly measures on restocking poultry while following closely veterinarian rules in order not to let the epidemic break again in late 2005," said Anh, a member of the national anti-bird flu steering committee.

Vietnam's third outbreak since the H5N1 virus arrived in late 2003 has infected half of Vietnam's 64 provinces. The virus seems to thrive best in cooler weather and is feared by experts as a potential cause of a human pandemic that would kill millions. Despite increasingly urgent measures to halt the rapid spread of the disease, which waterfowl such as ducks can carry without showing symptoms, it has now killed 45 people -- 32 Vietnamese, 12 Thais and one Cambodian. The Agriculture Ministry would ban the raising of waterfowl such as ducks and geese until June 30, Anh said.

After that, all breeding facilities would have to register before resuming operations, a practice Vietnam failed to follow last year, resulting in the latest recurrence, he said. The outbreaks this year were on a much smaller scale than the same time last year, he said. "Last year, by February 5 the virus had killed 16 million poultry on both small and large farms, while this year only 1.44 million poultry have been slaughtered or killed," he said. "This year, it happened only at scattered small-sized family farms, while large farms with 10,000 poultry or more are safe," Anh said.

Vietnam would start testing Dutch and Chinese anti-bird flu vaccines for poultry after the Tet festival, said To Long Thanh, deputy director of the Animal Health Department's Centre for Veterinary Diagnosis. State newspapers in China said scientists had developed a bird flu vaccine for poultry and mammals that can fend off the deadly virus and help stop its spread. Most bird flu victims have caught the virus directly from infected poultry, but experts fear it could mutate into a form that could easily jump between humans.

The Food and Agriculture Organization said Vietnam's donors -- Japan and the World Bank are the biggest along with Denmark, France and Britain -- would be asked for more help as the country needed technical assistance, laboratory equipment and logistics expertise. Vietnam has also appealed for international help.

By Ho Binh Minh - Reuters - February 8, 2005


In Vietnam, chickens continue to roost at home

HANOI - Nguyen Thuy Lan sits on a tiny plastic stool just inches from the sidewalk, crouched over a steaming bowl of duck noodle soup at a street-side restaurant. As she works her spoon and chopsticks, chickens peck the ground for scraps at her feet. One scraggly white bird even steals a couple of bites from a nearby pan of freshly made fritters for sale. No one bats an eye. This is life in Vietnam. As bird flu rages across the country, killing 12 people here and one in Cambodia in the past six weeks, Vietnamese continue to live among poultry as they have for centuries. And while some say they’ve stopped eating fowl until the current bird flu outbreak wanes, many defiantly vow not to change their habits.

'I'm not scared'

“I’ve heard of bird flu, but I’m not scared,” said Lan, slurping the last bit of juice from her bowl. “There may be bird flu outbreaks elsewhere, but not here.” Poultry, especially chicken, is everywhere in Vietnam. Birds hang by the neck, roasted golden brown, for sale on bustling sidewalks. They roam freely inside dirt-floor huts in the most remote countryside villages. Prized fighting cocks are a common sight in parks or on grassy medians as their owners squat beside them, egging them on in fierce, often deadly battles. Owners will even suck blood or phlegm out of the birds’ mouths following a fight.

Experts say bird flu, which has killed 45 people from Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia over the past year, has become entrenched in Vietnam’s poultry population, where more than a million birds have died or been slaughtered so far this year. But the country’s culture and traditions make wiping out the disease nearly impossible. Two brothers tested positive for the disease last month after eating raw duck blood pudding, a delicacy in Vietnam. The older brother died, while the younger man, Nguyen Thanh Hung, fought the disease for a week before recovering.From his hospital bed, Hung said it was a tradition to eat the dish while drinking rice wine at family reunions. Since the duck showed no signs of disease, no one thought there was cause for worry.

“When I was first admitted, I did not remember I had duck blood pudding,” said Hung, who now insists he’ll eat only blood pudding that’s cooked. “I thought my older brother and I suffered some kind of acute pneumonia.”

Entrenched habits

Vietnamese health officials and the World Health Organization have tried to tell people they must give up certain habits to protect themselves from the virus, which has killed about 70 percent of those infected. Scientists have said they believe people become infected through physical contact with sick birds — dead or alive — and their droppings, though it is still a mystery exactly how the virus is transmitted. However, well-cooked poultry is not a risk.

“We have no problems with these cultural habits, but in these circumstances ... we think that the people should be more careful,” said Peter Cordingley, spokesman for WHO’s Western Pacific Regional Office in Manila. “It seems to suggest to us that perhaps the messaging still needs to be made a little bit stronger — that there are some cultural habits that might be best temporarily suspended.”

Poultry is a major source of cheap protein for much of Vietnam’s 82 million population. Nearly every household in the countryside raises a handful of chickens or ducks to supplement meager incomes or to keep for eggs or food. Chickens roam freely in most yards and flocks of ducks waddle or swim in rice fields, fattening themselves while spreading their own natural fertilizer — and potential disease.

“In certain parts of Asia, ducks are being moved from field to field, from rice paddy to rice paddy,” said Malik Peiris, the Hong Kong University professor who discovered the SARS virus. “This dramatically increases the opportunity for the spread of infection.” Most human bird flu cases have been traced back to contact with sick poultry, but the WHO fears the virus will eventually mutate and become easily spread from person-to-person, sparking a global flu pandemic. So far, there is no evidence the virus has changed.

Warnings go unheeded

Despite nearly three dozen deaths among their countrymen, few Vietnamese have been seriously deterred from consuming poultry. Le Thi Sang lost her three children during last year’s outbreak after the family served 66 pounds of chicken at her son’s wedding. Her two daughters tested positive for bird flu, while her son died of similar symptoms. Despite her loss, Sang still buys poultry a couple times a week and insists her children were not infected with avian influenza.

“My son and daughter died of pneumonia, while the other daughter died of stomach blooding,” said Sang, 58. “It’s not bird flu.” The WHO has also warned that slaughtering poultry can be risky if protective gear isn’t worn. A 35-year-old woman and her 13-year-old daughter both died of bird flu last month after they killed a chicken together.

But in a busy Hanoi market, vendor Nguyen Kim Hue says she’s not worried. Standing over a mound of chicken carcasses at her stall, she says she slaughters about 50 birds a day, a routine she’s been following for the past 20 years. “I do not wear protective gear — no mask, no gloves. I’m OK because I bought healthy chickens,” she said. “I’m selling traditional Vietnamese chickens.” Hue is especially busy this time of year. The Lunar New Year is Wednesday, and chicken is the traditional centerpiece of the meal offered to a family’s ancestors on New Year’s Eve.

Last year, Vietnam banned the sale and transport of poultry over the holiday season as bird flu raged across 10 Asian countries, killing or forcing the slaughter of 100 million birds. No such bans are in place this year, but some wary shoppers say their ancestors will have to accept another dish instead to ring in the Year of the Chicken.“I stopped eating poultry a long time ago when I heard about the flare-up,” said Tran Thu Ha who stood in a marketplace near a heaping pile of chicken carcasses. She selected a plump fish from a tub of water.

The Associated Press - February 7, 2005