By IPS Correspondents
HO CHI MINH CITY , Sep 5 2005 (IPS)

Vietnam’s ambitious plan to vaccinate all its poultry before seasonal high demand for chicken meat begins, early next year, has suffered a setback because of the failed pilot programmes.

”The poultry inoculation programme against bird flu is slipping behind. The trial programmes, scheduled to end within a month have failed. We will review them before expanding the vaccination to other localities,” said Hoang Van Nam, one of the directors in veterinary department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

In June, officials launched two pilot vaccination programmes in Tien Giang province in the south and Nam Dinh in the north. Lessons drawn from the trials were supposed to help officials extend the vaccinations on a nationwide scale.

In Tien Giang, rains and floods slowed down the pilot programme and only 38 out of 127 communes have got their flocks vaccinated. In Nam Dinh, the results were better with 3.1 million fowls out of 4.3 million having been vaccinated.

Local newspapers have, however, pointed out that the sheer number of fowls to be vaccinated was far bigger than expected and the supply of vaccines slow.

Health officials planned to vaccinate some three million birds, but preliminary checks showed that actual number population of domestic birds at around six million. The country had only set aside about 30 million US dollars for the nationwide campaign, and many experts think the funding was not enough.

”No fear of vaccine shortage. They will be sent shortly,” assured Nguyen Thi Viet Nga, director of the Tien Giang veterinary centre. But Nga admitted to a problem with range fowl. ”We could not take into account all the ducks raised in the open fields”.

In the Mekong delta, farmers raise ducks in the open, driving them from place to place to feed including into harvested rice fields to feed on fallen grain. Fattened, the ducks are taken to markets in big cities like Can Tho and HCM City.

Health officials recently warned that if farmers do not strictly follow instructions to prevent the spread of bird flu there could be a serious risk to human life.

More than 140 million chickens have already been culled in Thailand, Indonesia, China and Vietnam in a bid to halt the disease. But experts say it is now endemic in China and Vietnam where poultry is raised in households, increasing chances of human contact with infected birds. Illegal slaughterhouses further heighten risks.

In Tien Giang and Nam Dinh, veterinarians have been teaching farmers how to administer the vaccine to chickens, ducks and quail. They have also asked farmers to raise fowls in the open rather than with homes and ensure that their birds are vaccinated.

A parallel ”campaign of information and explanation” has also been launched asking people to desist from eating the vaccinated chickens for 30 days.

”We will make sure that every duck and chicken is vaccinated,” Pham Minh Dao, head of Nam Dinh’s animal health department said.

However, Nga from Tien Giang was not so certain. ”Even for the flocks of ducks that have been vaccinated, control was difficult because of their mobility,” Nga said.

Officials at Tien Giang have asked farmers with not to move flocks during the vaccination programme. ”It is only after the second shot of vaccine that they are given a vaccination certificate,” Nga said. Vaccination certificates are given to birds that have undergone vaccination and can be legally transported to slaughterhouses and markets.

A recent report in the ‘Thanh Nien’ newspaper published in HCM City alleging that vaccinations were seen as little more than formality and that the certificates only had symbolic value.

Two Thanh Nien reporters – Duc Trung and Hoai Nam- followed the transaction of fowls from the outskirts to slaughterhouses and markets in HCM City for two weeks. They reported that veterinarians posted at the gates entering HCM City did not carry out any control measures and that vaccination documents could be obtained easily.

”We saw dozens of trucks carrying ducks and chickens passing the Binh Chanh station. The veterinarian on duty glanced at the (vaccination) documents and allowed the trucks to move on without even a glance,” their report said.

Posing as chicken traders, the reporters easily bought vaccination certificates at slaughterhouses. ”A vaccination certificate costs just three thousand VN dong (around 5 US cents), and you could buy as many as you like,” they reported.

”Veterinarians on duty just sell the certificates, paying no care to the number of chickens (to be sold as safe items).” At the Manh Thang slaughter house vaccination certificates were reportedly displayed in baskets for chicken traders to buy freely.

”With vaccination control so loosely implemented, residents in HCM City could easily end up consuming birds infected with the H5N1 virus,” the report in the Thanh Nien newspaper concluded.

This is precisely what health officials fear the most for their vaccination programme – the lack of public awareness of the real dangers from bird flu.

”We have regulations and penalties for buyers and sellers (of unvaccinated chicken and duck); but in reality if you ask me how many people have infringed the regulations I cannot answer,” Nga told IPS.

Last week, Dao Minh Tam, deputy director of Hanoi’s agriculture and rural development service, warned of another bird flu threat saying that 50 percent of water fowl transported into the city and 10 percent of those being raised there have tested positive for bird flu.

Tam urged authorities to take strict measures to check avian flu in Hanoi, adding that up to 70 percent of the capital city’s poultry was brought in from outside.

On Aug.17, three rare palm civets raised in Cuc Phuong national park in the northern province of Ninh Binh died of the bird flu virus; and on Aug. 30, a 58-year-old man from Soc Son district died in a Hanoi hospital of H5N1 virus after eating duck purchased in the market.

Another problem was that vaccinations so far had been limited to ducks and chickens. Quail, doves and geese had not been vaccinated because the recent imported vaccines are not suitable for them.

These developments threaten the schedule that officials have set up for the national vaccination campaign. The World Health Organisation has supported the campaign as an effort ”to reduce the risks to humans by reducing the intensity of exposure to the virus”.

MARD initially planned to vaccinate poultry in the remaining 12 Mekong delta provinces, including HCM City, and two northern provinces before Sep.10. Other high-risk provinces will start the campaign by October.

But under the present critical situation, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung wants to start the campaign in earnest so that it could be completed by Nov.15 so poultry could be safely put on sale for the Lunar New Year Festival in early 2006.

”If the vaccination is delayed beyond Nov.15, it will be very dangerous because winter is the season of flu,” MARD Minister Cao Duc Phat added.

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