Via Voice of Vietnam Online: High alert for deadly bird flu virus. Excerpt:
Bird flu has hit many provinces and cities and is spreading far and wide, according to the Ministry of Health.
As of August 23, four cases of A/H5N1 infection had been recorded with two deaths in Vietnam.
Health workers said that the epidemic will become more complicated, especially in the northern and central regions, when it reaches its peak in the next two months.
According to the national steering committee for bid flu prevention and control, seven provinces and cities, including Ha Tinh, Haiphong, Nam Dinh, Ninh Binh, Bac Kan, Quang Ngai and Thanh Hoa, have not yet passed the 21-day deadline for no bird flu infection.
Nguyen Van Binh, head of the Health Ministry’s Preventive Health Department, said that the disease has occurred in Vietnam since 2003, causing a huge loss of human life and property.
He asked local authorities, relevant agencies and people to take sterilization and vaccination measures and strictly control the transport, slaughtering and trading of poultry in order to curb the epidemic.
Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced the appearance of a new H5N1 virus in Asia that is more dangerous than the original one.
Associate Professor Nguyen Tran Hien, Director of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE), confirmed that no cases of the new virus have been detected in Vietnam.
However, he said, it is urgent to prevent the A/H5N1 virus from changing into new types with higher toxic contamination through people-to-people transmission.
The healthcare sector should work more closely with relevant agencies and local households to intensify sanitation and sterilization work and quickly stamp out new outbreaks of the fatal disease, he added.
*** Meanwhile, the Prime Minister on September 6 urged ministries, sectors and localities to strengthen the prevention and control of the avian influenza A/H5N1, hand-foot-mouth disease and dengue fever.
So far this year, there have been 80,180 cases of hand-foot-mouth disease with 41 deaths and 43,220 cases of dengue with 35 deaths.
