The Danish government on 13 July handed over bird flu control equipment worth 500,000 USD to Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development at a ceremony in Hanoi. The equipment was granted to help Vietnam to control a possible bird flu epidemic.
Equipment worth 202,000 USD will immediately be allocated to eight northern provinces and 10 southern provinces. The remaining will be distributed at a later date.
Back in 2004, Denmark granted Vietnam 300,000 USD worth of equipment and chemicals to combat the deadly bird flu.
Bird flu continues to be a very real threat in Vietnam. Recently, a new case of a patient with bird flu was reported in Hanoi. The patient later died. The latest death pushes Vietnam’s toll to 40 since bird flu outbreaks swept across Asia in late 2003. Another 12 people have died in Thailand and four in Cambodia.
There are 18 other patients are still being treated at the Hanoi’s Institute of Tropical Diseases – three testing positive with H5N1, two with H3 virus and one with acute respiratory problems.
According to the Ministry of Health, only laboratories at the Central Institute of Hygiene and Epidemics in Hanoi and Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City are currently allowed to perform bird flu testing to ensure no virus transmission.
