Vietnam declares bird flu outbreak over

Vietnam declared on Tuesday it had stamped out the bird flu epidemic, which killed 16 people in the country and wiped out millions of poultry, following more than one month of no new outbreaks.

“As of today we are free of bird flu,” Bui Quang Anh, director of the animal health department of the agriculture ministry, told Reuters. He said there had been no outbreaks of bird flu since February 26.

He later told a news conference that the epidemic may have been started by migratory birds and by Vietnam’s weakness in controlling border trade. Vietnam shares borders with China, Laos and Cambodia.

Agriculture Minister Le Huy Ngo told reporters Vietnam had deliberated on the 30-day grace period for the declaration. He said the common practice for announcing the end of an epidemic was based on 21 days.

“But I was concerned about this so the extension to 30 days was already a consideration,” he said.

The announcement drew wary reactions from the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization, particularly since a 12-year-old boy died just two weeks ago from the H5N1 virus in Vietnam.

“A lot of caution is required. There’s still a lot of potential for a new outbreak,” said Peter Horby, epidemiologist at the United Nations’ health agency.

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The WHO has not received official confirmation from the Ministry of Health about the most recent fatality, Horby said.

How boy became infected still unclear
Vietnamese scientists have also not been able to identify how the boy was infected by the H5N1 virus, said Nguyen Van Binh, deputy director of the health ministry’s general department of preventive medicine.

“There is evidence that the bird flu and the human influenza have connections, but we do not know yet the mechanism of infection,” Binh told the conference at which the WHO and FAO were absent.

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Binh said bird flu had been contained in the boy’s home town since February 18, and that he was infected on March 10.

FAO Vietnam representative Anton Rychener said his agency was not consulted on the bird flu-free declaration.

“The international community does not have any evidence to say the contrary, but we nonetheless caution the government to not announce it prematurely,” Rychener told Reuters.

While Vietnam has said it will require safety certification of poultry and eggs sold in markets, Rychener said the country lacked the capacity to properly police the products.

Thailand, where eight people have died from the virus, has not officially declared the epidemic over. But China said earlier this month it had stamped out the disease, which may have originated from migratory birds.

The agriculture ministry has revised up the total poultry culled or killed to 43.2 million from 38 million. Vietnam had a poultry flock of 250 million in December before the outbreaks.

Earlier this month, the FAO urged affected nations not to restock poultry farms too quickly to prevent the disease from flaring up again.

The virulent H5N1 avian flu virus spread across much of Asia from late 2003, causing the death or slaughter or more than 100 million fowl.