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Last week in FAO On H7N9’s Cross Border Threat we looked at the very real concern that the H7N9 virus, which had recently shown up in Guangxi Province (bordering Vietnam), could expand its range beyond mainland China.
Given the history of H5N1 - which reappeared in China early in the last decade and then rapidly spread to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand – fears of a repeat performance run high.
And while the spread of H7N9 remains atop the list of avian flu concerns, the recent detection of H10N8 in China, along with H5N8 (first detected in China, but now in Korea), H6N1 (detected in Taiwan), and the old standby H5N1, are all valid concerns.
Via Xinhua News we get the following report on efforts by Vietnam to stop the incursion of these avian viruses into their nation.
Vietnam raises alarm about H7N9 bird flu spread
HANOI, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's Ministry of Health (MoH) recently sent an urgent circular to provinces and cities, asking them to beef up the prevention and fight against H7N9 bird flu.
Appearing on MoH's General Department of Preventive Medicine website on Monday, the circular said although Vietnam has not reported any H7N9 case so far, the country has witnessed two deaths caused by H5N1 virus since the beginning of 2014.
In a recent development, a 39-year-old woman who was hospitalized at Vietnam's National Hospital of Tropical Diseases in a serious health condition of respiratory failure has reportedly showed positive results for avian influenza or H5N1 bird flu. The patient had not contacted with poultry, but there were dead chicken in her family, said the circular.
According to the department, H5N1 bird flu risks have loomed large to be able to spread in Vietnam together with the threat of H7N9 bird flu from neighboring countries due to geographical proximity as well as border trade and exchange activities.
Nguyen Tran Hien, head of Vietnam's National Hygiene and Epidemiology, said on local Vietnam Economic Review on Monday that there are high risks of combination of different influenza viruses or creation of new virus that will have greater virulence and cause greater danger to local people's health.
MoH thus asked local bodies to strengthen supervision of bird flu viruses including H7N9, H10N8, H6N1 and H5N1 at border gates and communities, collect samples of suspected bird flu viruses in hospitals and increase people's awareness of prevention and fight against bird flu viruses.
