January 18 2004 at 10:03AM
IOL
By Ben Rowse
Hanoi - Vietnam battled on Sunday to bring under control an outbreak of bird flu that has killed at least four people and raised fears of further infection as hospitals report more cases of respiratory illnesses.
The authorities here have appealed to the international community to provide protective equipment and training for workers carrying out a mass cull of chickens across the country.
Around two million chickens have died or have been slaughtered in Vietnam as a result of the outbreak of the H5N1 virus, which has sparked an Asia-wide health scare and comes on top of a re-emergence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in southern China.
'We are not sure how good a handle they have in the centre of the country'
Vietnam has ordered the culling of all chickens in the worst affected regions and has banned the sale of poultry in Ho Chi Minh City, its largest metropolis.
The exact number of the country's 64 provinces and cities affected by the virus remains unclear, but the ministry of agriculture and rural development said last week nearly half had reported outbreaks.
"We are not sure how good a handle they have in the centre of the country," Bob Dietz, the World Health Organisation's spokesperson in Vietnam, said on Sunday.
"We are still trying to understand the extent of H5N1 in Vietnam and are still trying to assess the risk it poses to the human population."
A two-person team from the WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) arrived late on Saturday in Ho Chi Minh City on a week-long mission to assess the situation in the south.
'We are still trying to understand the extent of H5N1 in Vietnam'
Ten more experts from the two United Nations agencies as well as the American Centres for Disease Control and Prevention are due to arrive in the south-east Asian nation this week to help containment efforts.
The WHO warned over the weekend that a growing number of people had been referred to two hospitals in Hanoi complaining of respiratory illnesses, but said it was too early to say if they were victims of avian influenza.
The UN health agency said there is still no evidence of human-to-human transmission. The four people confirmed to have died from the H5N1 virus caught it directly from an infected bird.
It has, however, warned of dire consequences if the virus mutates.
The four victims included a mother and her young daughter from the northern province of Ha Nam province. The other two, both children, were from Nam Dinh and Bac Ninh provinces, also in the north.
Vietnamese experts have blamed bird flu on the deaths of nine others at the two hospitals in the capital.
Dietz said there were three current suspected cases at these two institutions but warned they were only "a narrow 'window' into Vietnam's health situation and should not be seen as a comprehensive national view".
Tran Phan Duong, deputy director of the Central Paediatric Hospital - one of the two hospitals monitored by the WHO - said on Sunday that nine patients had bird flu symptoms and were undergoing tests for the virus.
No confirmed or suspected deaths have been reported in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, which are all coping with their own bird flu outbreaks.
Taiwanese authorities Saturday ordered 35 000 more chickens to be slaughtered after the less virulent H5N2 strain of the virus was found at a second farm in one week. About 20 000 birds were culled on Friday.
Agriculture officials there have said they fear the virus might mutate to become as dangerous as H5N1.
The WHO says bird flu is largely transmitted through bird droppings and not cooked meat, casting doubt over bans imposed on poultry imports from affected countries by many Asian nations.
The virus circulates in the air and is carried by the wind from fresh droppings of contaminated chickens. The UN agency has warned it is dangerous for humans to be close to infected birds whether they were alive or dead. - Sapa-AFP