Hanoi (VNA) - The Ministry of Health has urged municipal and provincial people’s committees,health departments and citizens across the country to take preventions againsta possible bird flu over the next 16 days ahead of the Lunar New Year andduringthe first months of the new year.

Tran DacPhu, Director of the ministry's Department of Preventive Medicine, saidthat the urgent recommendation came after evaluations during the late months of2017 and early 2018 showing that newly-emerging infectiousdiseases such as Mers-CoV continue to be reported in the Middle East,along with influenza A/ H7N9 in China, nld.com.vn online newspaperreported.

Meanwhile inVietnam, influenza A / H5N1 and A / H5N6 continue to occur in poultry inmany areas and are at risk of transmission to humans.

According toPhu, from January 17 to 19, bird flu was detected at a poultry-breeding farm inDien Chau district, the central province of Nghe An.

Nearly 200of the 800 poultry at the farm died, while the farm’s owner reported hispoultry herd wasn’t vaccinated against bird flu.

TheDepartment of Animal Health at the Ministry of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment has warned that many types of influenza A /H7N9 virus and otherhighly virulent strains such as A/ H5N2, A/H5N8 that haven’t yet appeared inViệt Nam are at risk of entering the country.

The mainroute of transmission was smuggling of poultry and unknown-origin poultryproducts. Therefore, the Department of Animal Health asked local authorities tobe active in prevention and controlling the threat of bird flu outbreaks,strengthen inspection and strictly tackle poultry smuggling and illegaltransporting.

Localauthorities and relevant departments should closely monitor the situation toensure timely action against outbreaks.

About thepossibility of a bird flu outbreak in the Tet period and first monthsof the new year, the Ministry of Health warned the disease could present acomplicated challenge due to the spring weather, people’s over-use of foodduring and after Tet holidays and high travel demand. All thesefactors increase the risk of transmission.

Nguyen Van Kinh, Director of the Central Tropical Disease Hospital,said the cold and humid weather was creating conditions for influenza virusesto develop. At some clinics, many patients were reported with seasonalinfluenza viruses such as H1N1 and H3N2, but the clinical symptoms were verysevere.

According tohealth experts, the virus strain of A / H7N9 is one of the major threats in theworld.  Influenza A/H7N9 was recorded in 2013 in China buthasn’t been controlled yet.
In 2017,influenza A/H7N9 outbreak in China, including two border provinces withViệt Nam, with 100 deaths were reported.

The WorldHealth Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Food and AgricultureOrganization (FAO) have warned that the influenza A / H7N9 virus strain haschanged from low to high virulence in both poultry and humans. It can kill 100per cent of infected poultry and can transmit 100-1,000 times faster than a lowvirulence virus. People with this flu may develop edema, heart failure, severeliver failure, coma and death, according to two organizations.

Epidemiologicalassessments of the flu epidemic are difficult to predict because of differingvirulence in influenza strains. For example, the A/H1N1 flu is dangerous atfirst, but actually the mortality rate is low, only 0.09 percent. Meanwhile,H5N1 has a mortality rate of 70 percent to 90 percent, even up to 100 percent at some periods. H7N9 also reported a mortality rate of 50 – 60 percent.

“So far, theworld has recorded many influenza pandemics. The Ministry of Health recommendspeople actively prevent the flu amid the increasing number of flu cases earlythis year," said Tran Dac Phu.

InVietnam, about 1.5 to 1.8 million cases of influenza are reportedannually and flu cases tend to increase at the time between winter andspring.-VNA