Sonny Inbaraj
HANOI, Dec 4 2006 (IPS) – For poultry farmer Tuan Thom, the onset of winter calls for extra vigilance against bird flu. And he is not letting his guard down though avian influenza has claimed no human victim in Vietnam during the past 12 months, nor have there been any poultry outbreaks.
In his poultry farm at Ha Nam district s Hung Cong commune 80 kilometres south of the capital where he rears 1,500 ducks and 1,000 chickens, Tuan is constantly on the lookout for migratory birds that might mingle with his domestic flock.
Winter is the time when migratory birds from Russia, China and Mongolia fly through Vietnam on their way to the warmer south. These birds carry the bird flu virus, Tuan told IPS.
Gesticulating menacingly, the farmer said: I have no qualms about shooting them with my rifle.
Annually around 30,000 such birds pass through Vietnam seeking winter shelter, on the route from East Asia to Australia. Some species of birds stay in Vietnam for one or two weeks while others stay for the whole winter, such as black-faced spoonbills, which often stay in estuaries in the northern and Cuu Long deltas, and the central coast.
Opinion has been divided in the scientific community as to the relative roles of wild migratory birds in the spread of the H5N1 virus that causes highly pathogenic avian influenza. The virus has infected 258 people in 10 countries Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, China, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Egypt, Djibouti and Cambodia and killed 154 of them.
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The largest number of human avian influenza cases is in Vietnam, with 93 testing positive for the H5N1 virus, while Indonesia has the world s highest death rate at 57 fatalities so far. Almost all human H5N1 cases have been linked to close contact with sick or dead birds, such as children playing with them or adults butchering them or plucking feathers, according to the World Health Organization.
Asian lineage H5N1 has been found in a number of species of dead migratory birds, but it remains unclear as to whether these species have become a natural reservoir of H5N1, or whether they contracted the virus from intermingling with nearby domestic fowl.. The recent isolation of the H5N1 virus in healthy wild ducks in Hong Kong and other parts of China does suggest that there is the potential for migrating birds to serve as a vector in spreading H5N1.
Nonetheless a Nov 22 bird flu outbreak in South Korea caused by the highly virulent H5N1 virus the country s first case in three years is deeply worrying. The South Korean Agriculture Ministry confirmed that avian influenza had killed 6,000 chickens at a farm in the southwest of the country that lies on a path for migratory birds.
The South Korean case clearly indicates that our Vietnamese poultry farmers must keep their ducks and chickens away from migratory birds, said Dr. Van Dang Ky, a veterinarian in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Surveillance and vigilance in winter are the key words, he said in an interview.
Though there have been no new human cases since last November, we must not be complacent and think that Vietnam is now free from bird flu, stressed the veterinarian.
But Van cautioned that the focus on migratory birds should not detract more useful policies to fight the avian influenza virus like public education, bio-security measures and curbs on the movement of poultry.
Winter is already upon us and the Lunar New Year or Tet (in February) is fast approaching. This is the time when Vietnamese consume huge amounts of chicken, Van pointed out. Slaughtering and cooking chicken on behalf of family ancestors is a crucial observance during Tet.
It is also during this period, Van explained, that the Agriculture Ministry increases its surveillance along Vietnam s borders with China and Cambodia to prevent the smuggling of live chicken and ducks to be slaughtered illegally.
The illegally slaughtered birds could be infected with the H5N1 virus and people can get sick eating them, he said. Legally slaughtered chicken and ducks in Vietnam bear a blue stamp from the ministry s department of animal health and people are encouraged to consume them.
Vietnam s success in controlling avian influenza is largely credited to a nationwide poultry vaccination campaign and strong political will to root out the virus. Some 100,000 people across the country have been deployed to vaccinate poultry against the disease, and about 45 million birds have been destroyed since late 2003.
But within the country health officials also acknowledge that garnering support from the population is crucial to avian flu prevention.
Our public information campaigns against bird flu have worked because the Vietnamese people fully support them, said Dr. Nguyen Quang Thuan, from the Centre for Health Education in the Ministry of Health.
But Nguyen is worried that old cultural practices could be hard to do away with, now that there have not been any new human cases of avian influenza.
Though open slaughtering of chickens is banned in the wet-markets, there are still certain poultry sellers killing live birds, behind their stalls, for their customers, he told IPS.
The medical doctor explained that many Vietnamese still prefer freshly slaughtered chickens and ducks to already dead birds . The ones killed in a government slaughterhouse and sold chilled are considered less tasty and nutritious.
Another cause of concern is renewed consumer preference for fresh duck-blood pudding or tiet canh .
This is a traditional Vietnamese delicacy. But under the present circumstances one could be playing with death consuming such a dish. What if there is the H5N1 virus in the blood? asked Nguyen.
For these reasons, the Vietnamese government is not resting on its laurels and is launching soon a public information campaign, in the lead up to Tet, to remind people of the dangers of avian influenza.
The risk of bird flu still exists in Vietnam and we don t want the people to let their guard down and suddenly be complacent. Remember we still have the largest number of human cases of avian influenza in the world, said Nguyen emphatically.
