Multiple outbreaks in Vietnam

Vietnam battles three bird flu outbreaks

Hanoi (dpa) - Authorities in Vietnam have identified three new outbreaks of bird flu in the Mekong Delta, raising fears of a larger-scale return of the deadly H5N1 virus after a year of relative calm, an official said Friday.

No human cases of bird flu have been reported, but chickens and ducks have died of bird flu in three new areas in the Mekong Delta provinces of Ca Mau and Bac Lieu, which this week reported the first confirmed cases in more than a year.

"The situation is alarming," said Hoang Van Nam, director of the Epidemic Unit under Vietnam's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Thousands of chickens and ducks in the affected areas have been slaughtered as authorities try to limit the spread of the virus, which has killed hundreds of millions of chickens and at least 42 people in Vietnam since 2004.

"Our assessment is that bird flu is likely to spread far outside the outbreak confirmed localities," Nam said. "Once the virus spread to the environment, other provinces will be affected."

Nam said the onset of winter represents heightened vulnerability for infection in both poultry and humans - especially as the coming lunar new year celebrations usually see families slaughtering chickens for feasts.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu is not easily contagious among humans, but people can be infected through close contact with infected poultry.

The virus has raised fears among scientists because up to 60 per cent of people known to have been infected have died.

International health organizations warn that H5N1 also could someday mutate into a new human influenza pandemic strain.

A new flu pandemic - which hasn't been seen since the 1960s - could kill as many as 62 million people, according to a study published this week in the medical journal The Lancet.

Most efforts in preventing a pandemic have focused on controlling the virus in domestic poultry, which would deny H5N1 the contact with humans that would make it most likely to mutate.

Vietnam has been one of the most successful countries in controlling the virus through an aggressive programme of poultry vaccinations, which took the country from having outbreaks in all 63 provinces in 2005 to no reported cases in poultry or humans for more than a year.

This week's reported outbreaks apparently were at small farms that had avoided the government-mandated vaccinations, officials said.