# 846
A few short months ago Vietnam was the poster child for the successful fight against bird flu. Once the most severely hit country in the world, they had reportedly eliminated human infections for more than a year, and were down to sporadic outbreaks in poultry.
Starting in February, we began to see new outbreaks, followed by a period of quiescence. Over the past six weeks, those outbreaks increased dramatically, and we have two confirmed human cases, and two . . . possibly four . . . suspected cases.
This from the Thanh Nien Daily.
Two patients recover as Vietnam grapples with bird flu crisis
Two patients admitted to hospitals in Hanoi last month with the H5N1 strain of bird flu are recovering and one of them is to be discharged soon.
The other, though still on a respirator, was alert and much improved, doctors at the National Institute for Tropical Diseases said.
One of them was working for a slaughterhouse in Hanoi though the national capital has not been listed among the 15 localities affected by the disease.
The two are the first to be infected with bird flu after 17 months free of human infections. The disease has returned to 13 provinces and two cities out of the country’s 64 provinces and cities.
Two provinces, Nghe An and Quang Nam, are in the central region, and Dong Thap province and Can Tho city are in the south. All the others, namely Nam Dinh, Son La, Quang Ninh, and Thai Binh provinces, and Hai Phong city, are in the north.
Vaccine dated?
At a conference in Hanoi Tuesday Dr To Long Thanh, director of the central Veterinary Medicine Supervision Center, denied recent warnings that a vaccine currently used against H5N1 in Vietnam had become ineffective after the virus had mutated.
He said six strains of the bird flu virus had been analyzed in China and Australia and found to be susceptible to the vaccine.
But he warned: “The chance of human infection from fowls is high.”
Speaking at the conference Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat said many areas had reported high vaccination rates but the actual figures were much lower.
Authorities in Can Tho had admitted to him that many ducks had died despite being listed as vaccinated.
The Animal Health Department said earlier that 129 million birds had been vaccinated against the disease this year.
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