Vietnam has detected one more commune hit by bird flu, raising
the total of affected communes nationwide to three with nearly
8,300 fowls killed by the disease or culled by local veterinary
agencies, according to local newspaper Youth on
Friday.
A bird flu outbreak was spotted in Khanh Hai commune, Tran Van
Thoi district, southern Ca Mau province on Dec. 20. It made 26
chickens sick and killed 13 others in the commune.
Since early December, the disease has stricken three communes in
two districts in Ca Mau and southern Bac Lieu province, killing and
leading to the forced culling of 1,092 chickens and 7,202 ducks,
the newspaper quoted the Department of Animal Health under the
Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development as
saying.
After seeing no bird flu outbreaks for nearly one year, Vietnam
detected that two communes in two districts in the two southern
provinces of Ca Mau and Bac Lieu were affected by the disease early
this month.
The disease first broke out in Tran Van Thoi district on Dec. 6,
killing 490 chickens and 2,033 ducks, and stroke Bac Lieu's Hoa
Binh district on Dec. 7, killing 3,550 out of 4,450 ducks.
All the poultry were over one month old, which had been hatched
unlawfully by local people and had not been vaccinated against bird
flu, the department said, noting that the risk of the disease
spreading in the southern Mekong Delta is very high because local
people have thrown dead fowls in canals, which could have
distributed viruses elsewhere.
Bird flu outbreaks, starting in Vietnam in December 2003, have
killed and led to the forced culling of dozens of millions of
fowls. The last outbreak of bird flu among poultry in the country
in 2005 was in December.
(Xinhua News Agency December 22, 2006)
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