Ha Noi (VNA) - Health Minister Tran Thi Trung Chien ordered the nationwide implementation of urgent measures against avian influenza (type H5N1) in humans as the threat is heightened after the disease was spotted in poultry flock in southern Ca Mau and Bac Lieu provinces.
Chien, who also heads the National Steering Board for Preventing and Controlling Avian Influenza Pandemic in Humans, requested sub-steering boards at ministries, provinces and cities to reinforce their inspections and surveillance over preventive work for bird flu in poultry, especially in high-risk provinces, in order to prevent it from affecting people.
The Ministry of Culture and Information was required to work with Viet Nam Television and other mass media agencies to promote their dissemination of preventive measures to everyone.
Meanwhile, municipal and provincial people's committees were ordered to strictly control the trade and transport of poultry from bird flu-affected areas and at border gates and tighten health quarantine at border checkpoints as well as prepare medical facilities in case avian influenza in humans outbreaks.
Viet Nam has contained bird flu in poultry and humans for more than a year. However, on Dec. 6, 2006, the disease broke out in the far-southern provinces of Ca Mau and Bac Lieu, increasing the risk of a wide resurgence and the threat of transmission into humans during spring 2007.
The World Health Organisation reported that H5N1 typed avian influenza has been spreading to almost all continents.
The disease claimed the lives of 157 people out of the 261 infected reported in Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Thailand, Turkey and Viet Nam.-Enditem
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