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Large bird flu outbreak approaching Vietnam: official



Vietnam is seeing a large bird flu outbreak approaching, local newspaper Pioneer on Thursday quoted the country's top veterinary official as saying.

"Vietnam has already faced outbreaks of bird flu among both poultry and people. We are sitting next to a large outbreak," said Bui Quang Anh, director of the Vietnam Veterinary Department.

To deal with the potential outbreak, the country is centering on vaccinating fowls nationwide. However, the vaccination has not gone as quickly as planned, since it takes time to import vaccines from China, while the supply is not abundant, Anh noted.

"To date, 37 cities and provinces nationwide have used 57 million doses of bird flu vaccines. We are importing additional 260 million doses," he said.

While accelerating the vaccination, Vietnam is actively making an urgent response plan to cope with potential bird flu outbreaks among humans. The Health Ministry has ensured reserves of 1,000 respirators and 1 million Tamiflu pills to treat infected people.

However, the ministry said Vietnam was only capable of dealing with medium-scale bird flu outbreak among humans, or some 2 percent of the 82-million population being infected with the disease. If large outbreak occurs, the country will have to rely on international help.

Up to 91 Vietnamese people have been infected with bird flu since the disease started to break out in the country in late 2003. Of them 41 have died.