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VIETNAM: Mekong Delta Farmers on Bird Flu Alert
By Tran Dinh Thanh Lam - Newsmekong
CAN THO, Vietnam, Jun 30 (IPS) - The bustling city of Can Tho is the capital of southern Vietnam’s fertile Mekong
Delta and one of the country’s two main rice baskets. Good food in abundance
makes it an ideal place to raise ducks and chickens, but this also means it is also
one of the most high-risk areas in the country for bird flu.
While new outbreaks of the disease threaten the entire country, as harvest
season gets underway officials are urging farmers in the Delta to be
particularly vigilant.
"This is the time of the year when the whole of the Mekong Delta should keep
our wits about bird flu," Nguyen Trong, a senior official in Can Tho’s
Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and a member of the local
Bird Flu Control and Prevention Office, said in an interview.
Three new outbreaks of bird flu have already been recorded in the Delta since
early May.
Vietnam has recorded some significant results in its battle with the deadly
bird flu virus. A prototype vaccine for the H5N1 virus is currently being tested
and could be ready for local use by next year.
Bui Ba Bong, deputy minister of agriculture and rural development, told the
National Steering Committee for Prevention and Control of Bird Flu in Hanoi
that despite the good news, "bird flu epidemics from poultry remain a threat"
often due to inadequate preventative measures.
Since January, the Ministry of Health has been training rapid-response teams
throughout Vietnam and provided them with H5N1 virus-proof masks and
protective suits.
"The human factor remains a key issue," Bong said. "A new relapse of bird flu
is only possible if authorities neglect their responsibility."
Local media across the country have reported truckloads of poultry passing
unchecked at quarantine stations. Dead fowl have also been found thrown
carelessly into rice fields and waterways at the first sign of outbreaks.
"Some farmers have become so reckless that they refuse to vaccinate their
fowl," said Nguyen Huy Nga, head of the Department for Preventive Medicine
and Environment in the Ministry of Health in Hanoi.
As the harvest seasons gets into full swing, Nga believes it is especially
important for authorities in the Mekong Delta to keep a close eye on
potential outbreaks of avian influenza. "The situation could become worse
during harvest season when poultry flocks are released into crop fields for
food," he said.
Most farmers throughout the Mekong Delta use natural methods to raise
ducks. Large quantities of ducks are released into newly harvested fields to
pick at left over grains. Chickens are allowed to roam free in gardens.
Farmers also drive large flocks of ducks from province to province to sell at
big cities.
"The reality is that recent bird flu outbreaks in the Mekong River Delta were
found among illegally incubated chicken and ducks that had not been
vaccinated [against bird flu]," said Trong.
"For a long time we forgot about bird flu, and thus were taken by surprise
when there were new outbreaks," said Dang Hanh, a farmer in Thot Not
commune, Can Tho province. He said he had had to cull nearly 500 ducks and
chickens due to recent outbreaks of the disease.
Many other villagers in the Delta reported a similar slackening in regard to
preventive measures aimed at preventing bird flu.
Another part of the problem is the lack of attention paid by officials in the
past to small-scale farmers. "Vaccinating teams do not come to our homes to
vaccinate because we have not got many ducks and chickens," said Hanh. "If
you want your birds to get vaccinated you must carry them to veterinary
stations. This is an expensive and time consuming process small farmers like
us want to avoid."
In response, Can Tho’s Bird Flu Control and Prevention Office has set up
inter-provincial quarantine stations to tighten security, particularly in relation
to small farms.
Many large-scale poultry farms in the Delta have been spared from the
recent spread of avian flu due to a new method of raising birds developed by
a Thai company, CP. Chickens are kept in self-contained coops equipped
with cooling systems to provide a regulated temperature. These are adjusted
according to each type and age of chicken.
"The fresh living environment shelters chickens from pathogens such as the
H5N1 virus and thus protects them from the epidemic," said Vo Van Thach,
owner of the biggest poultry farm in Can Tho province - worth 1.2 billion
Vietnamese dong (71,000 U.S. dollars).
Each province in the Mekong Delta now has between 100,000 and 450,000
chickens being raised according to this model, and there are plans to expand
it.
"I also want my poultry to be raised like that, but there will be too much
investment for me," Hanh from Thot Not commune said. For the time being,
breeding fowls in the traditional way remains the sole option for small
farmers, making them the first to be affected by bird flu when there is an
outbreak.
(*This story was written for the Imaging Our Mekong Programme coordinated
by IPS Asia-Pacific)
(END/2008)
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