After about 10,000 swallows have died and many samples of the dead birds have been tested positive with the H5N1 virus, the People’s Committee of south-central Ninh Thuan province has declared a H5N1 avian flu on swallows. Chairman of the Committee Nguyen Duc Thanh issued the declaration of epidemic yesterday morning, following the recommendations of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on Thursday. With the declaration, the province has become to be the first locality in the country to declare a bird flu epidemic on swallows, said Nguyen Xuan Binh, director of the Veterinary Office for Zone 6, under the Veterinary Department. “This a necessary decision of local authorities, contributing to preventing the spread of the H5N1 virus in Vietnam,” Binh said. Since late March thousands of the about 100,000 swallows raised by the Yen Viet Trading and Service Co Ltd at the Thanh Binh Theatre in Phan Rang-Thap Cham City have died and tens of samples of the dead birds have been found infected with the virus. Yesterday 15 staff members of the provincial Veterinary Sub-Department arrived in the theatre to collect dead swallows for incineration and spray antiseptics to disinfect the premises and surrounding areas. The same day Dang Pham Minh Loan, general director of Yen Viet, said her company was coordinating with authorities and concerned agencies in handling the dead birds and taking necessary measures to prevent the spread of the virus. “We have raised swallow for the past 10 years and the flock of birds affected by the H5N1 virus is worth tens of billion dong [VND1 billion = US$48,000]. We will certainly seek financial support from authorities and relevant agencies to partly make up for the huge loss we have suffered,” Loan said. Tran Quoc Nam, the spokesman of the provincial People’s Committee, said the authorities have asked the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to support breeders whose swallows have been incinerated due to the epidemic, but the ministry has yet to reply. Meanwhile, Binh said that there are no regulations on giving support to breeders whose swallows die or are culled due to an epidemic.

As previously reported, a state-owned Vietnamese pharmaceutical company will launch a specific vaccine against the H5N1 avian flu virus on the market in four months. Over the past eight years, the Company for Production of Vaccines and Biologicals No. 1, under the Health Ministry’s Central Epidemiology Institute, has studied and tested the vaccine. The company first tested it on animals and later on volunteers with good results.

A recent test has recently been conducted on 1,000 volunteers who received two shots of the vaccine within 28 days, and the test results showed that the vaccine is effective and safe for use on humans.