Hanoi- A flock of ducks that died last week on a farm in central Vietnam has tested positive for avian influenza, an official said Sunday. Government tests found that some 70 ducks were infected with the H5N1 virus, said Nguyen The Do, the deputy head of the Animal Health Department of Nghe An province.
The findings came a month after no new cases of the disease among poultry had been reported in the country.
"We have culled all the other ducks in the flock and disinfected the farm to prevent the virus from spreading further," said Do. "No one who had contact with the ducks is sick."
Officials said a massive program to cull sick birds and vaccinate healthy ones has helped keep the virus in check. More than 100 million ducks and chickens have been inoculated in this year's first round of vaccinations.
Vietnam also launched a nationwide education campaign to stem the spread of the virus in humans. Health experts say that discouraging the practice of consuming uncooked duck blood and washing hands after slaughtering poultry has been responsible for no new human cases since 2005.
Vietnam was once known as the epicenter of the virus, killing at least 42 people.
Authorities still face many challenges in trying to curtail the virus, particularly in ducks. Waterfowl in Vietnam has traditionally been allowed to roam free and ducks also tend not to show any signs of being sick.
Officials said that the six-week-old ducklings on the farm in Dien Tho, some 290 kilometers south of Hanoi, had not been vaccinated.
