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VIETNAM - Vietnam finds more bird flu-infected fowl in south

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  • VIETNAM - Vietnam finds more bird flu-infected fowl in south

    Vietnam finds more bird flu-infected fowl in south
    (Reuters)

    11 August 2006

    HANOI - Vietnam, worried about a recurrence of the H5N1 bird flu which has already killed 42 of its people, has found more ducks and geese infected with a strain of avian influenza, state media reported on Friday.

    The Saigon Giai Phong (Liberation Saigon) newspaper quoted Dong Manh Hoa, head of the Ho Chi Minh City Regional Veterinary Centre, as saying tests of the waterfowl in Tien Giang, Long An and Ben Tre provinces revealed the H5 subtype virus.

    A Ben Tre official told Reuters on Thursday more than 50 healthy waterfowl had been killed in the province after tests showed they had the H5 subtype, but there had been no outbreaks.

    The H5N1 virus swept across much of Asia in late 2003 and, although it has shown no signs of doing so yet, experts fear it could mutate into a form that can pass easily between people, triggering a pandemic which might kill millions.

    It has not killed anyone in Vietnam this year, but recurrences in Thailand, Laos and China have alarmed Hanoi officials worried their country has become complacent.

    In an urgent directive issued on Thursday, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told officials ?to focus strongly on instructing and deploying forces to carry out synchronised, preventive measures?.

    Officials say a failure to control waterfowl, which can be silent carriers of bird flu, made Vietnam vulnerable to new outbreaks and wild birds believed to carry H5N1 would migrate soon from the north, raising the risk of outbreaks.

    Farmers in the Mekong Delta have been raising ducks in large numbers despite a ban on breeding waterfowl due to remain in place until February 2007.

    At this time of year, when a rice harvest is underway in the region, ducks usually roam from field to field feeding on spilled grain.


    ...when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. - Sherlock Holmes
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