Agriculture & Fisheries: Vietnam Needs Five Years to Stamp out Bird Flu.

(From Vietnam News Briefs)

It may take at least five years to completely eradicate bird flu from Vietnam, despite initial declarations that bird flu had been eradicated in March this year, a Vietnamese government official commented to reporters in Hanoi on September 1.

In late March, Vietnam declared an end to the bird flu epidemic that resulted in the death of 43.2 million fowls, 17% of its total poultry population, causing losses of VND1.3 trillion ($82.8 million). Nineteen Vietnamese people have died from bird flu this year, including three deaths within the past month.

"We hope to eliminate H5N1 by 2010. This is a difficult task because the …