Vietnam new bird flu outbreak

HANOI, Oct. 18 (Xinhuanet) -- Vietnam has just seen the death of
some 110 ducks in southern Bac Lieu province, a local official told
Xinhua on Tuesday.

"According to tests by the Regional Veterinary Center in Can Tho
city, the fowls were infected with a bird flu virus strain," said
Nguyen Phuc Tai, director of the Provincial Veterinary Department.

The 110 out of over 300 ducks raised by a local farmer in Hong Dan
district died last week, he said, adding that the whole flock, which
had yet to be vaccinated against bird flu, was culled Tuesday morning.

Bac Lieu has vaccinated more than 600,000 fowls out of its poultry
population of over 1.1 million.

The Vietnamese government has recently decided to spend 700 billion
Vietnamese dong (VND) (44.3 million US dollars) on vaccinating fowls.
Vietnam is importing more bird flu vaccines from China so as to
complete the first batch of vaccination by late next month.

All fowls will have been vaccinated by late March 2007. To date, 37
out of 64 cities and provinces have vaccinated over 54 million fowls.

Vietnam has detected 22 bird flu outbreaks in 10 provinces since
April, which have killed and led to the forced culling of nearly 14,400
fowls, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

To deal with possible bird flu outbreaks among humans in the coming
time, the government will upgrade hospitals and ensure sufficient
reserves of anti-virus drugs with an estimated cost of some 6,870
billion VND (nearly 434.8 million dollars), according to delegates to
an anti-bird flu meeting hosted by the Government Office on Monday.

Last week, foreign donors pledged to disburse 6.8 million dollars
in the next six months to meet short-term needs of Vietnam's animal
breading and health care sectors.

Up to 91 Vietnamese people have been infected with bird flu since
the disease started to break out in the country in late 2003. Of them,
41 have died. Enditem