This month Vietnam saw another instance of a duck carrying the H5N1 avian flu virus, which led to large numbers of poultry being culled. There is now panic regarding the resurgence of the disease after a year of relative calm with no such incidents. This report is particularly worrisome since it coincides with detected bird flu cases in the neighboring countries of China and Thailand.
The virus was detected in a one of eight ducks from the Thanh Phu district in the southern province of Ben Tre. Animal health authorities have been conducting random checks on various local farms and 45 instances of infected ducks have been found in this district alone, as reported by the newspaper, Youth.
The government has ordered the culling of all infected birds as well as those in contact with those birds, who stand a chance of having got the virus. All farms, their surrounding areas and farm equipment has been disinfected. Prime Minister of Vietnam Nguyen Tan Dung has alerted local governments as well as citizens to stay vigilant and increase control along the land borders so poultry might not be smuggled into the country.
Health officials state that majority of instances of avian influenza have been detected in water fowl. This type of poultry is particularly risky since they carry the virus, but do not show symptoms until very late, by which time, it has probably spread beyond control.
Although so far the strains of the virus are such that it can only be passed from bird to bird or bird to human, scientists are increasingly worried that any mutation might spark of a pandemic with the virus being spread from human to human.
Vietnam has already made significant efforts to control this spread by initiating large scale vaccination and other techniques. It has also received global acclaim for its initiatives to curb this disease. So far the country has had 42 cases of human death through bird flu since 2003, though for the past one year, the country saw no case of human death.
