Vietnam to unveil advanced plan to fight bird flu

HANOI, Apr 28 (Reuters) Vietnam, the country hardest-hit by avian flu but free of the disease for six months, will present a model plan on containing the virus at an Asia-Pacific conference next week, international officials said today.

The ''Green Book'' outlines medium- and long-term strategies for fighting the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus among people and animals to help prevent a global pandemic.

It includes poultry and livestock production reforms, public awareness campaigns and tighter border controls to prevent illegal poultry trade.

''I'm sure it is the most advanced integrated plan that you will find in the region on avian influenza,'' Markus Cornaro, the EU Ambassador to Hanoi, said after a 10-day assessment of the plan with the government and aid agencies.

The H5N1 virus struck poultry and people in the Southeast Asian country of 83 million in late 2003. Vietnam, with 42 deaths out of 93 human cases reported, has the highest casualty rate but it has not had a human case of H5N1 since November.

In recent weeks, neighbours Cambodia and China have reported infections in people and poultry.

The draft five-year plan will be presented at the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) avian flu meeting of ministers of agriculture and health in the central Vietnam city of Danang from May 4-6. In November, the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi will host leaders of APEC, a group that includes economic powers such as the United States and China.

FOR THE WORLD ''I would like to say that this is not only a Vietnamese programme but a world programme,'' Trinh Quan Huan, a deputy minister at the Vietnam Ministry of Health, said at a news briefing.

Scientists fear H5N1, which has killed 113 people in nine countries worldwide since 2003, could mutate into a form that jumps easily between people and start a global flu pandemic.

The disease spread among birds in 45 countries.

Hans Troedsson, the U.N.'s World Health Organisation representative in Vietnam, said the plan was ''technically sound'' but could not be copied or used as a blueprint by every country.

''But what I think other countries should learn is the process by which Vietnam has done it in an integrated way, a comprehensive way and I think that's the message we'll get across to other countries,'' Troedsson said.

After nearly two years of using mainly culling to control the virus, the Communist government last year adopted a combination of mass poultry vaccination, disinfecting, culling, information campaigns and bans on live poultry in cities.

The ministries of agriculture and health, working with international aid groups and U.N. agencies, were expected to spend between 0 million and 0 million over five years on combatting avian flu, the WHO official said.Fifty percent would be paid by the government.

REUTERS CH BST1430