A bird flu outbreak can be disastrous for Vietnam
The national plan on avian influenza prevention and control from 2019 to 2025 presented by the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), more than half of the country is exposed to high risks in case of a bird flu outbreak.
399 districts across Vietnam have been identified as high-risk areas for the outbreak of bird flu while another 314 districts are at low risk, according to the plan.
"The high-risk districts have more than 3,000 poultry farming households, over 100,000 poultry, over 100 duck farming households, or over 11,000 ducks. Low-risk districts are those that fall in at least one of following categories, including no bird flu outbreak or bird flu virus reported in the last five years, their poultry population is less than 100,000 poultry and less than 3,000 households raise poultry in a district. The low-risk districts have disease-free poultry production chains", shows the document, quoted by Vietnam Plus.
Head of the Epidemiology Division under the Department of Animal Health Nguyen Van Long said that the zoning which identifies high/low-risk areas for bird flu outbreak is one of 12 key measures Vietnam is taking to better prevent and control bird flu until 2025. Other measures included disease detection, response and control, vaccination, animal quarantine, and poultry slaughtering control. The country will also develop more disease-free production zones and safe production chains in conformity with recommendations of the World Organisation of Animal Health (OIE).
Now, there are six disease-free poultry production zones in Vietnam and 654 poultry farms are certificated disease-free.
In 2003, Vietnam was the first country to report the avian influenza virus A/H5N1 in poultry and more than 45 million poultry were culled between 2003 and 2006. Between 2007 and 2013, about 200,000 poultry were killed because of bird flu each year. Between 2014 to March 2019, about 90,000 poultry were killed because of bird flu each year. From 2004 to 2014, 127 people were infected with A/H5N1, of them, 64 victims died.
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