Bird flu kills more ducks in northern Vietnam
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Bird flu kills more ducks in northern Vietnam*
30 May 2007 01:15:47 GMT
Source: Reuters
HANOI, May 30 (Reuters) - Bird flu has spread to another duck farm in
northern Vietnam, killing 2,120 fowl which had not been vaccinated
against the H5N1 virus, the Agriculture Ministry said.
Tests confirmed the H5 component of the virus in the 14-day-old
ducklings in the farm outside Haiphong city last week, the second
outbreak in the area, the ministry's Animal Health Department said in a
report seen on Wednesday.
Animal health workers slaughtered the remaining 1,200 ducklings,
bringing the total number of birds killed by the virus and slaughtered
this month around the country to nearly 50,000.
The virus has infected ducks and chickens in nine provinces and Can Tho
city in May at the beginning of summer, which is unusual as experts say
the virus appears to thrive best in cool temperatures and weakens in
warmer weather.
A 30-year-old man contracted the disease in northern Vietnam, doctors
confirmed last week, the first human infection since November 2005.
Bird flu has killed 42 people in Vietnam since it re-surfaced in Asia in
late 2003. The virus returned to poultry in the south late last year and
early this year.
While more than half of Vietnam's 64 provinces and cities have completed
the first phase of poultry vaccinations against bird flu, all the
infections found so far were among those which were left out of the
nationwide campaign.
Agriculture Minister Cao Duc Phat said on Tuesday that all waterfowl
must be vaccinated or slaughtered to help stop bird flu from spreading.
Phat told a government committee for bird flu that he and his deputy,
Bui Ba Bong, would supervise a new month-long campaign against the
disease starting on Friday, the Vietnam News Agency reported.