Ho Chi Minh City to stop raising poultry

Ho Chi Minh City to stop raising poultry

HANOI: Vietnam, the country hardest hit by Asia's bird flu with 37 deaths, has ordered farmers in Ho Chi Minh City to stop raising poultry later this year when the threat of outbreaks is highest.

The Agriculture Department of Ho Chi Minh City, home to 10 million people, said on Friday avian influenza was likely to strike again between November and February even though the city has had no human cases since December 2004.

The Department instructed the city's animal health and agriculture officials to tell farmers to stop raising chickens, ducks and geese for four months starting in November.

"Cages should be left vacant and poultry-raising be temporarily suspended for the period from November 2005 to February 2006, the time of a high risk of bird flu recurrence," the Department said in a statement.

On Thursday, the World Health Organization said the spate of human bird flu cases in Vietnam this year suggested the H5N1 virus may be mutating in ways that are making it more capable of being passed between humans.

The Health Ministry said Vietnam has 76 people infected by bird flu since the disease first hit in late 2003, among them 37 people had died. The virus has also killed 12 people in Thailand and four in Cambodia.

Vietnam, which hopes to contain the virus only in 2007 and eliminate it by 2010, last month extended a ban on the hatching of water fowl eggs until February 2006. --Reuters