Viets spot outbreak near border with China
The Star, 9 Apr 2006

HANOI: Vietnam has detected bird flu on three farms near the Chinese border, the second such finding in the past few days, an animal health official said yesterday.

Health workers slaughtered 157 chickens and ducks after farmers said 30 birds died on March 19 on three farms in Cao Bang province, said Dang Quang Binh, head of the provincial Animal Health Department.

“We sent samples for testing and on March 25 the results showed H5 was found in poultry samples from the three farms”, Binh said by telephone from Cao Bang, 270km north of here.

He was referring to the H5 subtype avian flu virus.

No further tests were likely to be done to confirm if the strain was H5N1, which has killed 42 people in Vietnam since late 2003.

Vietnam usually tests for the N component of the strain when a sample comes from a suspected human case.

With poultry, the finding of H5 is enough to carry out preventive measures such as slaughter and disinfection of birds.

The H5N1 strain has killed or led to the culling of millions of poultry in Vietnam but there have not been any human cases since last November.

On Thursday, officials said the H5 subtype virus was found in samples from chickens smuggled from China and seized in Lang Son province, next to Cao Bang, marking the first published finding of bird flu in poultry in Vietnam since December. --- Reuters.