Vietnam is facing high risk of bird flu reoccurrence in February and March when cold weather is favorable for the development of viruses, local newspaper Youth Monday quoted a local official as saying.

The weather in the northern region and big transport and sales of poultry nationwide during the Lunar New Year Festival (between late January and early February) are favorable conditions for bird flu viruses, including H5N1 strain, to grow and spread, said Hoang Van Nam, vice director of the Department of Animal Health under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The fact that most of the 60-million waterfowl population in Vietnam are raised freely in fields and canals also contributes to the high risk, he said.

To deal with potential bird flu return, Vietnam has intensified surveillance over the disease, and transport and sales of fowls. Besides, it has recently imported additional 150 million doses of bird flu vaccines from China.

Vietnam will start vaccinating poultry for the second batch on Feb. 16, Nam said, noting that first vaccination will be conducted in northern Nam Dinh province and southern Tien Giang province.

In the first batch lasting from August 2005 to late January, about 246 million poultry turns (each dose for a fowl being considered one turn, two doses for the same fowl regarded as two turns) have been vaccinated.

The department on Feb. 5 said 21 cities and provinces nationwide, which had been hit by bird flu since early October 2005, detected no new outbreaks for at least three weeks, meeting criteria to declare their territory free of the disease.

Vietnam's Health Ministry on Jan. 24 confirmed 93 human cases of H5N1 infections, including 42 fatalities, in the country since December 2003.

Source: Xinhua