Vietnamese City Bans Sale of Poultry, Asia Worries
Date: 19-Jan-04
Country: VIETNAM
Author: Christina Toh-Pantin
South Korea, Japan and Taiwan have also reported outbreaks of bird flu, but Vietnam has been the hardest hit, with 18 suspected cases of human influenza linked to bird flu, although only three of those have been confirmed as avian flu. Among the 18, a dozen people, most of them children, have died.
The Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization had recommended the ban on the sale of poultry in the southern commercial hub, the FAO's Vietnam representative, Anton Rychener, said.
The ban was necessary because some farmers were balking at culling their flocks, he said.
Vietnam accepted the recommendation, which comes just days before its biggest festival, Tet, or the Lunar New Year, during which chicken is cooked as an offering to ancestors and eaten.
Checks at markets Friday in Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon, found no sign of chickens, alive or dead.
Japan appeared no nearer to tracing the source of its first outbreak of bird flu in nearly 80 years, but experts said there was a slim likelihood migratory birds had brought in the disease.
Thailand, one of the world's biggest chicken producers, says it has no bird flu but will start an inspection of every poultry farm in the country next week to halt the spread of cholera among chickens, a top official said.
Nearly 900,000 chickens have died in Thailand since Nov. 21, of which 29,746 were confirmed to have been killed by cholera and respiratory problems, with the rest culled because they showed symptoms of the disease, an agriculture official said.
Singapore said it was banning the import of live chickens from any country affected by bird flu.
HELP ON STANDBY
WHO expert Hiroshi Oshitani said Thursday the most urgent task for Vietnam was to stop the virus from infecting humans.
Vietnam's flu cases have occurred in the north, while the bird flu has struck the south. It is unclear how the people were infected.
The sale ban, imposed late Thursday, also allows for the seizure of chickens and ducks for destruction, the official Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said. Authorities would pay 15,000 dong (96 cents) for each seized chicken or duck.
It was not clear if the sale ban would extend to the capital, Hanoi, and other cities.
The ban on poultry sales in Ho Chi Minh City came a day after the Agriculture Ministry prohibited the transportation of chickens in 18 southern provinces where the outbreak first became known last week. Most of them are in the fertile delta of the Mekong River.
Doctors had yet to determine how the bird flu virus turned lethal, but pigs could be the intermediary helping the virus mutate, said Hoang Thuy Long, director of the Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology.