# 1094
At it's height, a couple of months ago, 18 provinces in Vietnam were experiencing outbreaks. A couple of weeks ago, that number had been reduced to 3. Now, with this latest outbreak, they are back up to 5.
Vietnam reports fresh bird flu outbreak
Vietnamese animal health authorities reported Monday they found the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus in ducks in the Mekong Delta’s Tra Vinh province, the fifth province on the disease list.
The flock of 450 ducklings in Phuoc Hung commune had not been vaccinated against the virus, the Animal Health Department said.
Some 150 had died last week.
The other provinces on the bird flu watch list are Cao Bang, Dien Bien, Dong Thap and Thai Nguyen. Vietnam has 64 provinces.
Seven people had been infected this year, four fatally, bringing the death toll since 2003 to 46, the government said.
It began a two-day workshop Monday to review the anti-bird flu strategy and adopt measures to combat the disease.
The agricultural ministry reported at the workshop that prompt culling of poultry had been carried out in affected and high-risk areas, transport of poultry and related products tightened, and infected areas sterilized.
It had also banned hatching of waterfowl, closed live poultry trading markets, and vaccinated all poultry while promoting public awareness of the disease.
However, shortcomings in breeding, slaughtering, processing, and trading poultry products, weak epidemic surveillance, and poor control of illegal cross-border poultry transport were still serious problems, the ministry admitted.
The risk of virus transmission among poultry in the country was very high, Anthony Forman of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warned.
According to the Animal Health Department, poultry flocks that succumbed to the H5N1 virus were found to be unvaccinated. As a result, vaccination programs are set to continue throughout the country.
Globally, the H5N1 virus has killed 195 people out of 322 known cases. Hundreds of millions of birds have died or been slaughtered.
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