# 951
Issuing mandates is relatively easy. Getting compliance, particularly in remote, rural areas, not so much.
This from Thanh Niem News.
Southern Vietnam faces bird flu peril
Vietnam’s southern provinces face the risk of bird flu outbreaks because of slack control and inoculation of free-ranging waterfowl, delegates told a conference in Vung Tau town Thursday.
Nguyen Xuan Binh, deputy head of Ho Chi Minh City’s Animal Health Center, said while provinces reported inoculation of 87% of poultry in the region, the real rate was only 70% at most.
He blamed it on the massive increase in free-range ducks – since the government lifted a ban on waterfowl hatching and rearing in March – for which the provinces had no updated statistics.
Waterfowl numbers in the south have nearly doubled to over 26 million, 24 million of them in the Mekong Delta region, according to Animal Health Department figures.
Most of the 1200 backyard farms in the south are casual about vaccinating their birds.
Delegates blamed their attitude on the lack of deterrent financial penalties – VND2 million (US$124) is the maximum fine.
Experts have already warned that bird flu outbreaks were a strong possibility during the summer-fall rice harvest season when farmers raising ducks let them range over paddies.
The government proposes to have all waterfowl farmers registering with local authorities for stringent vaccination control.
Twelve provinces and cities in the north and central regions are bird-flu affected and have slaughtered over 245,000 birds.
Vietnam has also recorded a human death toll of 44 out of 98 cases reported since 2003.
