Vietnam capital warned of renewed bird flu threat
HANOI - Vietnam's capital has been warned that 50 percent of water fowl transported into the city and 10 percent of those being raised there have tested positive for bird flu, state press reported.
Dao Minh Tam, deputy director of Hanoi's agriculture and rural development service, was quoting tests carried out a week ago, according to the army daily Quan Doi Nhan Dan.
Last year, all of Vietnam's 64 provinces and cities were hit by bird flu but the number of areas with fresh outbreaks has gradually reduced this year. Forty-two people have died of the disease in the world's worst-hit country.
Tam urged authorities to take strict measures to check avian flu in Hanoi, adding that up to 70 percent of the capital's poultry was brought in from outside.
The new warning comes a day after it was revealed that three rare palm civets raised in a national park in the northern province of Ninh Binh had died of the virus in the first such case.
A mother and two young of the endangered Owston's palm civets died in the same cage in June with H5N1 infection confirmed by a laboratory in Hong Kong, it was revealed Friday.
The agriculture and rural development service has asked city authorities to vaccinate all poultry and water fowl in Hanoi, totalling some 4.2 million.
Vietnam launched a trial vaccination programme for poultry on July 30 in a southern province and on August 4 in a province in the north.
The government, which earlier planned to begin vaccinating 80 percent of its more than 200 million chickens and ducks in October, decided to bring the start forward to September.
Experts say the new campaign's success or failure will determine whether Vietnam can halt the spread of bird flu.
Vietnam wants to complete the mass vaccination before winter, widely feared to be the prime time for the virus to spread in the country.
Bird flu has killed 61 people across Asia, 42 of them in Vietnam since late 2003, and ravaged poultry stocks in the region as well as in parts of Russia and Kazakhstan.
Health experts have warned the bird flu virus could spark a global pandemic if it develops the ability to spread quickly among humans.
Agence France Presse - August 27, 2005.
Bird flu kills 3 rare civets in Vietnam
HANOI - Bird flu has killed three rare cat-like civets born in captivity at a national park in Vietnam, marking the first time the virus has been reported in the species, officials said Friday.
"It's another good example of how dangerous this thing is," said Scott Roberton, technical adviser for the civet conservation program at the Cuc Phuong National Park, about 75 miles south of Hanoi, the capital.
The Owston civet cats died in late June and samples sent to a lab in Hong Kong came back positive for the H5N1 virus, said Roberton. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health in Hanoi confirmed the results.
He said most other animals at the park have been tested — including chickens, rats and other birds — but none has tested positive for the virus.
Scientists suspect that
SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which killed nearly 800 people worldwide in 2003, was passed to humans from civets and other mongoose-like animals sold in live food markets in southern China.
Civets are found throughout Africa and Asia and only distantly related to the common house cat. Members of the Viverridae family, civets have a pointy, striped nose like a weasel, with a long, cat-like body and tail. Most are between five and 11 pounds, but can weigh up to about 25 pounds.
An epidemiologist for the WHO in Hanoi, Peter Horby said the development would not make people more susceptible to bird flu because humans have less contact with civets than poultry.
"The interesting thing is that it's a new species," he said. "It continues to surprise."
Bird flu had previously been found in other mammals, such as cats and tigers.
The virus has killed 61 people regionwide, with the bulk of those deaths in Vietnam. Health experts have repeatedly warned that the world is due for an influenza pandemic that could kill millions and cripple economies. They fear the bird flu virus will mutate and become easily transmitted from person to person. So far, most human cases have been traced back to contact with poultry.
Owston civets are globally threatened and found in southern China, Vietnam and Laos. The civet program was started at the park in the mid-1990s after four animals were seized from a smuggling operation, park manager Do Van Lap.
By Margie Mason - The Associated Press - August 26, 2005.
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