VIETNAM - SEPTEMBER 1 AVIAN INFLUENZA REPORT

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HANOI 002263 SIPDIS STATE FOR G, CA/OCS/ACS/EAP, EAP/EX, EAP/MLS, EAP/EP, INR, OES/STC (PBATES),OES/IHA (DSINGER AND NCOMELLA),AND MED STATE PASS TO USAID FOR ANE AND GH (DCARROLL, ACLEMENTS AND CJENNINGS) STATE PASS TO USTR (EBRYAN) STATE PASS TO HHS/OGHA (WSTIEGER, EELVANDER AND ABHAT) USDA PASS TO APHIS DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE FOR OSD/ISA/AP (LSTERN) BANGKOK FOR RMO, CDC, USAID (JMACARTHUR AND MBRADY) ROME FOR FAO SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: TBIO KFLU AMED AMGT CASC EAGR PINR SOCI VM SUBJECT: VIETNAM - SEPTEMBER 1 AVIAN INFLUENZA REPORT HANOI 00002263 001.2 OF 003 SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED REF: HANOI 2114 AND PREVIOUS ¶1. (U) Summary. There have been no reported human AI cases and no AI outbreak activity in poultry to date this year in Vietnam. Another 45 ducks in a household in the Mekong Delta's Ben Tre Province tested positive for carrying H5N1 and were subsequently culled. A Government of Vietnam (GVN) official stated that the government has spent approximately VND 100 billion (US$ 6.25 million) on poultry vaccines and has vaccinated 135 million poultry. On August 22, 2006 Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung sent an urgent cable to the Chairmen of People's Committees in provinces and cities under the direct control of the Central Government underscoring the danger of avian flu and of H5N1 outbreaks among humans. Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat has ordered that all ducks hatched before September 1 be raised in fenced-in farms and be vaccinated against H5N1; all ducks hatched after September 1 will be destroyed under executive order. However, a similar ban last year was largely ignored by farmers. A three-person AFRIMS team visited Embassy Hanoi and ConGen HCMC to support Mission Vietnam's's effort to collect data on patients with influenza-like symptoms from a paper-based process to a computer-base, web-accessible application. If scaled-up and rolled out, the Access database would allow STATE MED to know immediately, on a regional scale, what Embassy personnel have been infected, receiving treatment, etc., during a pandemic scenario. End Summary. ¶2. (U) There have been no reported human AI cases and no AI outbreak activity in poultry to date this year in Vietnam. State owned press has reported that another 45 ducks in a household in Thanh Phu town of Thanh Phu district in the Mekong Delta's Ben Tre Province have been found to be H5 positive, according to Mr. Mai Van Hiep, head of the provincial animal health department. HCMC ConGen EconOff found that the infected ducks had been vaccinated in July. The veterinary station in Thanh Phu reported culling the flock, at the same time strengthening supervision and getting medical samples for the testing for H5N1 avian virus. According to Vietnam News dated August 31, animal health authorities have confirmed that two ducks in Hanoi have tested positive for the H5 virus. In HCMC, animal health authorities culled 53 storks at Suoi Tien theme park following random tests that indicated the birds were carriers of the H5 strain. ¶3. (U) Saigon Times dated September 1 quoted Mr. Dong Manh Hoa, head of the Animal Health Department for southern provinces, saying that the proportion of vaccinated chicken and waterfowls capable of deterring the H5N1 virus was 75 percent this year, some five percentage points lower than a year ago, which he believes is still sufficient to deter a severe outbreak in poultry. According to Mr. Hoa, the GVN has spent approximately VND 100 billion (US$ 6.25 million) on poultry vaccines and has vaccinated 135 million poultry. Mr. Hoa reiterated he believes a deterrence level of 75 percent is high enough to prevent outbreaks from developing into a full-scale epidemic in poultry. (Note: While the GVN sets the minimum deterrence level for poultry at 70 percent, lower antibody rates for ducks, the primary vector for AI, represents a major gap in the GVN's vaccination campaign. Other waterfowl, such as ducks, may require more frequent vaccination than the current twice yearly schedule. End Note.) ¶4. (U) On August 22, 2006, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung sent an HANOI 00002263 002.2 OF 003 urgent cable to People's Committee Chairmen of centrally administered cities concerning the danger of H5N1 outbreaks in humans. The main content of the cable is as follows: "In some neighboring countries, especially in the southwest border, the avian influenza has re-occurred and the A (H5N1) flu has been in a very serious and complicated situation, causing a danger of the recurrence of an outbreak in Vietnam. What should be done immediately includes: 1) Animal health, public health, customs, transport and border military forces should closely coordinate with the Steering Committee for Fighting Smuggling and Trade Fraudulence and local administrations to strictly control border gates, stop the import of poultry and poultry products from countries having outbreaks and impose serious sanctions on the illegal imports; and 2) Measures should be taken as directed by the Instructions by the Prime Minister on August 8, 2006 on preventing and fighting AI and H5N1 influenza, not letting outbreaks to expand to humans." ¶5. (U) State-owned newspapers reported on August 30 that Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat has ordered that all ducks hatched before September 1 be raised in fenced-in farms and be vaccinated against H5N1. Those hatched after September 1 must be destroyed, according to a GVN executive order. Despite the order, even the state-owned press admitted that "a similar ban (last year) on hatching and raising waterfowl was largely ignored by farmers (and that) it's unclear how the government would enforce the order this time." Nguyen Dang Vang, Director of MARD's Animal Breeding Department, said there are 220 million poultry in Vietnam as of April 2006, including 50 million ducks and eight million geese. ¶6. (U) According to state-owned media, the National Steering Committee on Avian Influenza Prevention has instructed local governments to build "lines of defense" and ban breeding of waterfowl starting September 1st. The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Cao Duc Phat, decreed at a conference in Hanoi that in order to prevent bird flu outbreaks, localities, especially in the northern border provinces, should focus on three lines of defense: controlling poultry trafficking, preventing the transport of infected birds, and tightening poultry farming norms. ¶7. (U) State-owned press reported on August 30 that the Ministry of Health (MoH) has asked provincial and municipal health departments across Vietnam to set up typeA/H5N1 mobile prevention teams with sufficient equipment to readily cope with possible H5N1 epidemics. The MOH requested that its departments quickly develop necessary plans to prevent a possible outbreak of typeA/H5N1 among humans and closely coordinate village-level surveillance with animal health authorities. The MOH also ordered the use of Cloramin B for sterilizing and disinfecting "epidemic hotspots." ¶8. (SBU) A three-person AFRIMS team headed by Lt. Col. Rodney Coldren MD, MPH, visited Embassy Hanoi and ConGen HCMC to support Mission Vietnam's efforts to collect data on patients with influenza-like symptoms, which is required from STATE MED. The team is proposing an upgrade from a paper-based process to a computer-base, web-accessible application. If scaled-up and rolled out, the Access database would allow STATE MED to know immediately, on a regional scale, what Embassy personnel have been infected, receiving treatment, etc. during a pandemic scenario. ¶9. (U) As of September 1, 2006: HANOI 00002263 003.2 OF 003 -- No human AI deaths since October 29, 2005 -- No human AI cases since November 14, 2005 -- No AI outbreaks in poultry since the last reported incident on December 17, 2005 in Cao Bang Province MARINE