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

Year :      [2005]      [2004]      [2003]      [2002]      [2001]      [2000]      [1999]      [1998]      [1997]

Vietnam says bird flu under control, stocks drug

NOUMEA - Vietnam said on Friday it had bird flu under control, but would stockpile 1 million doses of antiviral drugs ahead of the onset of winter when the virus seems to thrive best. "The threat of winter is coming. Avian influenza is easily transmitted in the winter season, so we are going to prepare for the control of the disease," Vice Minister of Health Trinh Quan Huan told Reuters in an interview.

He said no new cases of bird flu had been reported since July and a mass poultry vaccination programme to innoculate 260 million birds was due to end in November. "Right now, I think the disease is already under control," Huan said at a World Health Organization (WHO) conference in Noumea, capital of New Caledonia in the South Pacific. Vietnam is on the front line of the avian flu battle, suffering 44 of the 64 deaths since the disease re-appeared in South Korea in 2003 and spread through Asia and into Russia.

The Hanoi government launched a programme in late July to vaccinate poultry in 47 of the 64 provinces to try and stop the spread of the contagious H5N1 strain of bird flu. Vaccination is underway in 20 provinces, state media have reported. The WHO has said the H5N1 strain may be mutating in ways that are making it more capable of being passed between humans and has urged quick action to prevent a global pandemic. It has recommended mass culling of infected birds but many Asian countries cannot afford to compensate farmers for the loss of their flocks.

Human vaccine

Health experts have praised Vietnam's efforts to stop the disease but say there are still gaps and have called for better surveillance and reporting, particularly in rural areas. Nearly 80 percent of Vietnam's 82 million people live in the countryside and officials admit a huge challenge in identifying and tracking sick birds raised in villages. The United States has pledged $2.5 million to enhance bird flu surveillance in Vietnam. Yet Vietnam is concerned about the onset of winter and is stockpiling the antiviral drug Tamiflu.

Huan said Vietnam had 600,000 tablets of the drug, but wanted to stockpile 1 million doses in case an avian flu pandemic broke out. "The government has approved the plan of action. After that we will have to find out ways to get the Tamiflu," Huan said. "We will ask the international community to support Vietnam for not only Tamiflu, but also some of the other activities to control the disease."

The WHO is working with a dozen Asian nations to build a regional stockpile of anti-flu drugs to be rushed to the scene of a human outbreak within 24 hours to prevent it spreading. Huan said Vietnam was also working on a human vaccine which was now entering its second phase of testing with a larger sampling of birds. "Vietnam right now is developing H5N1 vaccine. We have already tested in animals and the results are already very good. We have detected immunity in the animals," he said. "It is now going to the second phase. We are waiting for the result of the second phase of the vaccine."

The most advanced bird flu vaccine is one developed by France's Sanofi-Aventis, which has proved effective at stimulating an immune system response in healthy adults. Australia's CSL Ltd will begin human trials of a bird flu vaccine next month. U.S.-based Chiron Corp. aims to test its H5N1 vaccine later this year and Britain's GlaxoSmithKline Plc plans large-scale clinical trials in 2006.

By Michael Perry - Reuters - September 23, 2005.