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

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Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City to stop raising poultry

HANOI - Vietnam, the country hardest hit by Asia's bird flu with 37 deaths, has ordered farmers in Ho Chi Minh City to stop raising poultry later this year when the threat of outbreaks is highest. The Agriculture Department of Ho Chi Minh City, home to 10 million people, said on Friday avian influenza was likely to strike again between November and February even though the city has had no human cases since December 2004. The Department instructed the city's animal health and agriculture officials to tell farmers to stop raising chickens, ducks and geese for four months starting in November. "Cages should be left vacant and poultry-raising be temporarily suspended for the period from November 2005 to Ferbuary 2006, the time of a high risk of bird flu recurrence," the Department said in a statement.

On Thursday, the World Health Organisation said the spate of human bird flu cases in Vietnam this year suggested the H5N1 virus may be mutating in ways that are making it more capable of being passed between humans. The Health Ministry said Vietnam has 76 people infected by bird flu since the disease first hit in late 2003, among them 37 people had died. The virus has also killed 12 people in Thailand and four in Cambodia.

Last week doctors said the virus had infected two men in northern Vietnam. Both were in stable condition at a Hanoi hospital. Vietnam, which hopes to contain the virus only in 2007 and eliminate it by 2010, last month extended a ban on the hatching of water fowl eggs until February 2006. Experts said the birds can carry the virus without showing any sign of illness, making them a reservoir for the H5N1 virus.

While Indonesia has had no reports of people being infected by bird flu, it made an alarming discovery this month after detecting the virus in pigs that can already carry human flu viruses. The finding has heightened health experts' fears that the virus could spread to humans as the human flu viruses in pigs can combine with the bird flu viruses to create virulent strains.

Reuters - May 20, 2005