Vietnam Bans Farming of Ducks Amid Bird Flu

Vietnamese officials have ordered a nationwide ban on duck and goose farming in a bid to head off a mounting bird flu outbreak that has claimed 13 lives since late December.

The waterfowl are a reservoir for the virus and can carry it without becoming ill, making it difficult to identify infected animals. Officials in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s largest city, this week ordered all ducks to be killed.

“These steps show an appreciation of the realities of the disease,” said Klaus Stohr, head of the World Health Organization’s global influenza program. “But they are the first steps of a marathon.”

Vietnam requested help Thursday from the WHO and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization to combat the bird flu outbreak that has spread over half of the nation’s provinces. There also are cases in neighboring Thailand and Cambodia.

About 100 million birds were culled in 10 countries when the avian influenza virus, known as H5N1, raged through the region last winter. Since then, the disease has killed 45 people.

After a lull, the number of infections has surged since December.

Vietnamese and U.N. officials agreed that a team of international experts would be assembled within two weeks.

The U.N. agencies will provide field and lab equipment to improve surveillance and reporting. U.N. officials also will conduct epidemiology studies and train lab personnel across Vietnam in rapid detection of the virus. Sluggish testing and reporting previously fostered the spread of the disease.

Kennedy Shortridge, an influenza researcher with the University of Hong Kong, applauded the efforts as long overdue.

“You’ve got to know your enemy,” Shortridge said, adding that in much of Southeast Asia, “if there is a problem, you ... sweep it under the carpet.”

Concerns rose this week after the first Cambodian bird flu fatality was reported by Vietnamese medical officials. The 25-year-old woman died Sunday in Vietnam after crossing the border to seek treatment.

Her brother had died a few days earlier after suffering bird flu symptoms, but Cambodian authorities said the woman’s surviving relatives showed no signs of the disease.

In Vietnam, eight patients with bird flu symptoms were hospitalized this week. Only one bird flu patient has fully recovered this year.

Health experts fear that as the number human cases increases, so will the likelihood the lethal virus will mutate to become more easily transmitted between people, making a pandemic possible.