Vietnam prepares for worst-case bird flu scenario
HANOI - Vietnam's healthcare system would be overwhelmed if 10 percent of the country's population became infected with bird flu, officials said as the government scrambled to prepare for a worst-case scenario.
"We can cope with a small scale epidemic, as it has already happened over the past two years. But if it occurs into a pandemic, we don't know what to do," Le Thi Song Huong, deputy head of northern Hai Phong city's preventive healthcare department, told AFP Tuesday.
More than 60 people are believed to have died from bird flu since 2003, two-thirds of them in Vietnam.
Scientists fear the H5N1 bird flu virus may mutate to become highly infectious through human-to-human contact, possibly killing tens of millions worldwide.
Hanoi said it would declare a nationwide state of emergency if 10 percent of the country's 82 million people became infected with the virus.
"We are preparing for the worst scenario of up to 10 percent of our population infected with H5N1," said Tran Hung, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health.
On Monday Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said during a bird flu conference that the risk of a large-scale epidemic in the communist nation was high.
"We have to exert our greatest efforts, mobilising the entire political system to ensure the epidemic does not occur," Dung was quoted as saying in Tuoi Tre daily newspaper.
"But in case it happens, we have to be well-prepared to mitigate the spread and minimize consequences on humans."
According to the emergency plan, several major hospitals would be mobilized as focal points for treating patients, with schools and public places also being used as treatment areas.
Nguyen Tran Hien, director of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, said his organisation and the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City were the two organisations most capable of carrying out biological tests.
"However, in case the large scale epidemic happens, we won't be able to conduct tests for every sample," Hien said. If large numbers of people test positive, all patients showing similar symptoms would be treated as bird flu victims, he said.
A thousand respiratory machines will be purchased, state-media also said.
Vietnam promised that foreigners living in the country would be provided with the same health supervision, protective measures and medical treatment as those given to Vietnamese citizens, the state-owned Vietnam News Agency said.
Agence France Presse - October 19, 2005.
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