SATURDAY, JANUARY 17, 2004
Vietnam to kill all fowl in 12 flu-hit regions
AFP
HANOI : Vietnam Friday ordered the slaughter of all chickens in the 12 regions grappling with a bird flu epidemic which has been blamed for the deaths of 13 people and has triggered an Asia-wide health scare.
On advice from the United Nations, the government also banned the sale of poultry in Ho Chi Minh City , the country's largest metropolis.
Agriculture officials said the costly decision to cull millions of healthy chickens in the worst-affected areas was taken to prevent further transmission of the virus.
"The Ministry has decided to kill all chickens in these epidemic zones," Dau Ngoc Hao, deputy director of the veterinarian department at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, told AFP.
Eighteen other provinces and cities have reported outbreaks of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, but so far the government has decided against ordering a cull of poultry there.
Anton Rychener, head of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Vietnam , warned that the ban on chicken sales in Ho Chi Minh City might have to be extended to other areas if transmission continued.
"I think there is a general sense that Vietnam is getting more and more of a handle on the disease, but the situation is still evolving," he said.
South Korea , Japan and Taiwan were also battling their own outbreaks of bird flu, which is threatening to spoil next week's Lunar New Year celebrations across the region and comes amid a re-emergence of Sars in China . Thailand , meanwhile, was accused by a local consumer association of covering up a bird flu outbreak.
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