VIETNAM: SENIOR AGRICULTURE OFFICIAL SAYS VIETNAM MAY SLAUGHTER POULTRY IN ITS BIG CITIES TO PREVENT BIRD FLU VIRUS DEATH TOLL RISING

Record ID: 647217

  • Title: VIETNAM: SENIOR AGRICULTURE OFFICIAL SAYS VIETNAM MAY SLAUGHTER POULTRY IN ITS BIG CITIES TO PREVENT BIRD FLU VIRUS DEATH TOLL RISING
  • Date: 17th February 2005
  • Summary: (W2) HANOI, VIETNAM (FEBRUARY 18, 2005) (REUTERS) 1. VARIOUS OF CHICKENS AT FRESH FOOD MARKET (2 SHOTS) 0.10 (W2) HO CHI MINH, VIETNAM (FILE) (REUTERS) 2. VARIOUS OF DUCKS AT FARM (3 SHOTS) 0.24 3. VARIOUS OF WORKERS PUTTING DUCKS INTO BAGS FOR CULLING (3 SHOTS) 0.39 (W2) HANOI, VIETNAM (FEBRUARY 17, 2005) (REUTERS) 4. INTERVIEW WITH BUI QUANG ANH, DIRECTOR OF AGRICULTURE MINISTRY'S ANIMAL HEALTH DEPARTMENT 0.44 5. (SOUNDBITE) (Vietnamese) VIETNAMESE BUI QUANG ANH, DIRECTOR OF AGRICULTURE MINISTRY'S ANIMAL HEALTH DEPARTMENT SAYING: "The killing of all poultry may be concentrated in cities, urban centres, but we cannot afford to abandon poultry farming. The current measures are to suspend the raising of all the waterfowl to reduce their stock." 1.04 (W2) HANOI, VIETNAM (FEBRUARY 18, 2005) (REUTERS) 6. MORE OF CHICKEN AT MARKET 1.14 7. VARIOUS OF WORKERS WASHING CHICKENS AND PLUCKING AWAY CHICKEN FEATHERS (3 SHOTS) 1.27 (W2) HANOI, VIETNAM (FEBRUARY 17, 2005) (REUTERS) 8. (SOUNDBITE) (Vietnamese) ANH SAYING: "We have to supervise and conduct a restructure, we cannot let the sale of live poultry go unchecked. We will restructure wholesale and large markets, to combine with the culling efforts. This will help Vietnamese form a habit to use products with proper labels from shops and supermarkets." 1.51 (W2) HANOI, VIETNAM (FEBRUARY 18, 2005) (REUTERS) 9. SV/CU; MORE OF CHICKENS AND CUSTOMERS AT MARKET (2 SHOTS) 1.59 10. (SOUNDBITE) (Vietnamese) NGUYEN THI THINH, 64-YEAR-OLD HANOI RESIDENT, SAYING: "At first, I was reluctant (to eat chickens). But knowing that the poultry entering this market has been quarantined. I am no longer reluctant... Yes, I bought a chicken each day. I had three chickens. I ate them and there has been no problem." 2.22 11. MORE OF CHICKENS AT MARKET (2 SHOTS) 2.34 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 4th March 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: HANOI AND HO CHI MINH, VIETNAM
  • Country: Vietnam
  • Reuters ID: LVA7QSM8ZD37YFCR5M91DIPAW4YP
  • Story Text: Experts say bird flu virus can produce a deadly
    encephalitis, diarrhoea and other symptoms that do not look
    like the classic respiratory disease and Vietnam to
    slaughter poultry in big cities.



    A senior agriculture official said on Thursday
    (February 17) Vietnam may slaughter poultry in its big
    cities to prevent the bird flu virus adding to the toll of
    13 people it has killed in recent weeks and move bird
    rearing out of populated centres.

    The government statement comes as an international team
    of doctors said the bird flu virus can produce a deadly
    encephalitis, diarrhoea and other symptoms that do not look
    like the classic respiratory disease.

    They reported on the cases of a 9-year-old girl and her
    4-year-old brother who died of encephalitis, a swelling of
    the brain case, in southern Vietnam one year ago.

    The children's' deaths were a mystery until the
    researchers went back and checked samples from the boy and
    found avian influenza virus.

    The reports suggests the that the clinical spectrum of
    influenza H5N1 is wider than previously thought and that
    they have important implications for the clinical and
    public health responses to avian influenza.

    Vietnam's director of the Agriculture's Ministry's
    Animal Health Department, Bui Quang Anh said the killing of
    poultry would start in cities in another tough action in
    the war against the poultry virus.

    "The killing of all poultry may be concentrated in
    cities, urban centres, but we cannot afford to abandon
    poultry farming. The current measures are to suspend the
    raising of all the waterfowl to reduce their stock," he
    said.

    Vietnam's largest city of Ho Chi Minh, home to 10
    million people near the Mekong Delta where the latest
    outbreak of the deadly H5N1 began, was the first to order
    such a complete slaughter.

    It had already ordered the killing of all its ducks,
    which can carry the disease without showing symptoms of the
    virus, which kills 80 percent of the humans it infects.

    Anh said healthy birds would be frozen and eaten, while
    sick birds would be destroyed by burning or burial.

    He added poultry raising will restructured and it may
    never return to urban centres. Measures to prevent another
    epidemic included raising birds in indoor farms quarantined
    from wild birds are being enforced.

    "We have to supervise and conduct a restructure, we
    cannot let the sale of live poultry go unchecked. We will
    restructure wholesale and large markets, to combine with
    the culling efforts. This will help Vietnamese
    form a habit to use products with proper labels from shops
    and supermarkets," he said.

    What the World Health Organization fears most is that
    the virus could mingle with either human or pig influenza
    viruses, for instance by infecting a person who also had
    human flu, and acquire the ability to pass easily between
    people.

    Such a new strain could kill tens of millions of
    people.

    Bird flu has killed 80 percent of people diagnosed with
    the infection, so far claiming the lives of 45 people -- 32
    Vietnamese, 12 Thais and one Cambodian.

    Flu experts say some people may not become fatally ill
    with the infection, so it is difficult to calculate a true
    mortality rate.

    Migrating wildfowl, which, like domesticated ducks can
    carry the virus without showing symptoms, are believed to
    have brought it to Asia at the end of 2003.

    Since then, it has killed 45 people -- 32 Vietnamese,
    12 Thais and one Cambodian.

    In the capital Hanoi, poultry are now being processed
    and labelled as 'safe to eat' in fresh food markets and
    customers say they welcome the new measures.

    "At first, I was reluctant (to eat chickens). But
    knowing that the poultry entering this market has been
    quarantined. I am no longer reluctant... Yes, I bought a
    chicken each day. I had three chickens. I ate them and
    there has been no problem," said 64-year-old Hanoi resident
    Nguyen Thi Thinh.

    Vietnam's mass cull is the latest tough action taken in
    its war against a virus experts fear could mutate into a
    form which could pass between humans and cause a pandemic
    that might kill millions in a world without immunity to it.

    The Agriculture Ministry has banned hatching and
    raising of water fowl, such as ducks and geese, until June
    30. After that all breeding facilities would have to
    register before resuming operations, Anh said.

    Provinces which detect no outbreaks within 21 days are
    allowed to declare themselves free of the virus, but he
    declined to say on Thursday when Vietnam might declare
    itself free of bird flu.

    Since December 30, the H5N1 virus has infected 11
    people in the south and all have died. However, only two of
    seven people who caught it in the north have died, the
    others recovering in hospital after treatment.

    But the virus, which spread to more than half Vietnam's
    64 provinces and cities since re-emerging in December, had
    caused no new infections in poultry in nine of the affected
    provinces over the last three weeks, it said.

    Next week, the U.N. food agency and the World Organization for
    Anim
    al Health will hold a regional meeting
    in Ho Chi Minh City to discuss the emergency.



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