Vietnam will launch a new campaign on Thursday to vaccinate vast flocks of poultry against avian influenza, despite an absence of bird flu outbreaks for two months.
HANOI: Vietnam will launch a new campaign on Thursday to vaccinate vast flocks of poultry against avian influenza, despite an absence of bird flu outbreaks for two months, a top agriculture ministry official said.
Vietnam has recently imported 150 million doses of vaccine from China, Hoang Van Nam, deputy director of the ministry's veterinary department, said adding that the campaign would cost six million dollars.
"The state leaders have asked us not to relax our vigilance and our measures against bird flu as a risk of relapse is still high in Vietnam," Nam said.
The new drive would be launched in northern Nam Dinh province and Tien Giang in the south, he said. It would then be extended to the other 62 provinces but concentrate on those along the Red River in the north and the Mekong delta in the south.
Tony Forman, the Food and Agriculture Organisation's technical advisor in Hanoi, said his organisation was associated with the new campaign through the provision of expertise, equipment and training.
No new outbreak of avian influenza among birds has been reported since December 15 and no human cases for more than two months.
"I think it is highly significant," Forman said, noting that during the lunar new year periods of 2004 and 2005, there had been massive outbreaks. The handling and consumption of chicken rises sharply during festivals.
Foster said during last year's campaign about 70 per cent of Vietnam's poultry had been covered, helping to stem outbreaks. Bird flu has killed more than 90 people since the H5N1 strain of the virus resurfaced in late 2003 - most of them in East Asia, according to World Health Organisation figures. Most of those deaths, 42, occured in Vietnam.
Scientists fear the H5N1 virus may mutate into a form easily transmissible between humans and trigger a pandemic that could kill millions around the world.
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