Vietnam allows farms to resume chicken hatching, stocking - VIETNAM - Vietnam is allowing commercial farms to resume hatching and restocking chickens since there have been no bird flu outbreaks among poultry over the past two months, an agriculture ministry official said Friday.

Last fall, the government imposed a ban on breeding chickens in a bid to prevent the spread of the bird flu virus.

"The restriction has been lifted because bird flu has been brought under control," said Hoang Kim Giao, deputy director of the Breeding Department under the Agriculture Ministry.

However, the ban on raising and restocking ducks and other water fowl remains in place until February 2007, he said.

Giao said that under the decision issued by the ministry earlier this week, all chicken hatchlings sold by commercial farms must be vaccinated.

Since bird flu re-emerged in the region in late 2003, Vietnam's poultry industry has been among the hardest hit. The country has also recorded the majority of at least 91 human deaths caused by the disease.

Small-scale backyard poultry farming has been blamed for the latest wave of bird flu outbreaks late last year, which forced Vietnam to cull more than 4 million birds. However, the epidemic has eased recently, with no bird flu outbreaks reported in the past two months and no human infections since Nov 14.

Bird flu has killed or forced the slaughter of more than 100 million birds since 2003. Most human deaths have been traced to contact with infected birds.

Source: eFeedLink - 17th February 2006