- Vietnam has been struck with a bird-flu outbreak in the
country's southern Mekong Delta region, officials said today.
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- The outbreak in the southern province of Bac Lieu killed
many chickens and local officials there had culled 5000 infected chickens
at three farms in efforts to contain the virus, an official at the provincial
Animal Health Department said.
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- "We think the bird flu has re-emerged in the province,"
he said.
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- Initial tests conducted in Ho Chi Minh City had confirmed
that the chickens tested positive for an H5 strain of bird flu, and further
tests were being run to determine whether it was the dangerous H5N1 variant.
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- That type of avian influenza swept through Asia earlier
this year, killing or forcing the slaughter of more than 100 million poultry.
The disease also jumped to people, killing 16 people in Vietnam and eight
in Thailand.
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- _____
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- (Xinhuanet) - More than 3,000 fowls in Vietnam's southern
Bac Lieu Province have died of bird flu type A, sub-type H5 by late afternoon
of Tuesday, an anonymous local official said on Wednesday.
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- Meanwhile, fowls died en masses have occurred recently
in the country's Mekong Delta region.
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- The reoccurrence of fowl deaths due to flu type A, sub-type
H5 in Bac Lieu Province was first detected when over 10 healthy fowlsin
a farm suddenly died on June 12. Numbers of fowl deaths in the farm had
been increasing on the following days, up to 100 per day.
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- While about 200 fowls tested positive to avian influenza
viruses, sub-type H5, in another farm in the province, also died on several
days before June 17.
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- To contain the disease, Bac Lieu Province culled all
of the 3,000 infected chicken. It has also carried urgent preventive measures,
focusing on controlling the disease, zoning affected areas, culling all
fowls in farms with fowl deaths, spraying chemicals to disinfect farms,
and inspecting transportation and trade of fowls in the province. Besides,
fowls traded in the localmarkets must be quarantined.
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- Earlier, the country was reported to face a high risk
of the relapse of bird flu, as 13 localities in the country, including
the Mekong Delta, and the Red River Delta, still had avian influenza viruses,
mainly in ducks.
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- Now, Vietnam is strengthening activities to ensure hygiene
in the localities, control the import of baby poultry, and overcome the
consequences caused by the bird flu outbreak. The government has just allowed
the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Developmentto conduct a project to
urgently overcome the aftermath of the bird flu outbreak with total capital
of nearly 7.6 million US dollars.
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- In April, it decided to allocate 245.3 billion Vietnamese
dong (VND) (15.6 million US dollars) to 57 localities, helping them prevent
bird flu reoccurrence and revive the poultry industry.
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- In late March 2004, Vietnam declared an end to bird flu
that killed 17 percent of its poultry population, and claimed 16 human
lives since it broke out last December. A total of 43.2 million fowls in
57 out of 64 localities nationwide either died or were culled, causing
the local poultry industry to suffer direct losses of 1.3 trillion VND
(82.8 million dollars). End item
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- http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-06/30/content_1556557.htm
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