Vietnam needs additional 30 million U.S. dollars to detoxify Agent Orange, the defoliant sprayed by the U.S. army in Vietnam War, in the country's central region, local newspaper Youth reported Thursday.

The country is seeking the money for the Agent Orange detoxification in areas around Da Nang airport in central Da Nang City and Phu Cat airport in central Binh Dinh province, the paper quoted sources from the office of the country's steering committee on overcoming aftermath of toxic chemicals used by the U.S. army in the war.

Vietnam has targeted to complete the detoxification in the two localities by 2010, said the report.

Earlier, the Vietnamese government has spent 100 billion Vietnamese dong (nearly 6.3 million dollars) in detoxifying Agent Orange in areas around Bien Hoa airport in southern Dong Nai province.

Local experts said the three airports are hot spots, as they used to be wartime bases where the chemicals were stored and spilled.

According to studies of U.S. scientists, the U.S. army dropped some 80 million liters of defoliants, mostly Agent Orange, which contained nearly 400 kilograms of dioxin, an extremely toxic substance, to Vietnam between 1961 and 1971, said the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin.

The Vietnam War ended in 1975, but 4.8 million Vietnamese people have so far been exposed to Agent Orange, of whom some 3 million are victims, said the association.

Source: Xinhua