A farmer carrying chickens on a motorcycle makes his way to a local market on a road in the suburds of Hanoi in 2004.

Cattle from poverty and hunger eradication projects have been found to be infected with foot-and-mouth disease, while a bird flu outbreak is threatening the Mekong Delta, according to a meeting Tuesday.

Ca Mau Province was instructed to speed up the cull of poultry infected with bird flu, Phat told the meeting of the government’s bird flu prevention committee in Hanoi.

Other provinces have to vaccinate the flocks as scheduled, he said.

Bird-flu has been detected in chicken and duck flocks in the northern provinces of Thai Nguyen and Thanh Hoa and in Ca Mau Province in the south this year, with a total of 16,000 birds destroyed.

In Ca Mau’s Tran Van Thoi District, 3,330 fowl were culled over the past two week after eight families found animals infected with the disease.

“Bird flu is very complicated in Ca Mau,” Deputy Agriculture Minister Diep Kinh Tan told Tuesday’s meeting.

“Local authorities in Ca Mau only began incinerating birds from January 30, even though the disease was detected two weeks earlier,” he said.

Tan also warned against the local habit of throwing duck carcasses into the river, especially as the area is about to harvest rice crops.

“February and March are the period when bird flu infections flare up,” he said.

Foot-and-mouth disease

At the meeting Tuesday, Minister Phat also instructed provinces which have foot-and-mouth disease to set up checking stations at the borders to manage the transport of cattle to other areas.

The committee reported 324 cattle have been infected with foot-and-mouth disease this year in Kon Tum, Son La and Long An provinces.

Several members of the committee were worried that the cattle supplied to poor residents through poverty and hunger eradication projects were infected.

Tan also requested a review of the free foot-and-mouth vaccination program in Kon Tum Province. The Central Highlands province has the highest rate of cattle infected with the disease, with 227 animals in six districts struck down so far this year.

Hoang Van Nam, deputy head of the Department of Animal Health under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said foot-and-mouth disease in Kon Tum was threatening other provinces in the Central Highlands, even though it had been controlled in Long An and Son La provinces.

He said 20,000 doses of foot-and-mouth vaccine had been sent to Kon Tum.

Strict surveillance

Meanwhile, Hanoi authorities on Monday banned the transport of fowl and other livestock on motorbikes, bicycles or pedicabs.

Checking stations have operated around the clock but they haven’t caught many fowl being illegally transported, the VNExpress online newspaper reported.

Under the new rules, only vehicles approved by animal health authorities and certified by local authorities will be allowed to transport livestock and meat.

Source: TN, Agencies