Seven southern provinces tighten ties against bird flu

The meeting on measures for the bird and human flu pandemic was held on November 21 by directors of agriculture departments of seven southern provinces of Dong Nai, Binh Duong, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Tay Ninh, Long An and Tien Giang. This coordination programme is expected to be approved by the chairs of the People’s Committee on November 24.
During the meeting, the directors emphasised the need in tightening the cooperation between the seven provinces to deal with the avian epidemic because the effort in single province won’t help much. At this moment, the bird flu worsens in the south when one person died for being suspected of H5N1 avian flu.
The problem that all the leaders of provinces are most concerned about is that if there is a ban on poultry meat from other provinces into HCM City, there will be a lot of difficulties in the bird flu prevention and economic hardships for households. Nguyen Van Khang, director of agriculture department in Tien Giang province said that there is no outcome for chickens and ducks in Tien Giang. “Some household have to spend 50 million dong to maintain bird stocks flocks. Hence, the coalition programme of seven provinces should focus on the priority of consumption market for the households”, said Khang.
The director of HCM City agriculture department Nguyen Phuoc Thao confirmed: “under the city’s instrument, people are warned not to consume poultry unidentified of origin into the city. However, they can use poultry with the seals verified by the veterinary officials”.
At the meeting, the scale of farming poultry flocks in order to balance the supply and demand in the market was also discussed. Specifically, there is a daily demand of 200,000 to 300,000 chickens or ducks before the pandemic occurs. Localities can bases themselves on this demand to adjust their farming size”.
Finally, leaders of agriculture sector came to the agreement of the joint action plan. Under the action plan, households are encouraged to coordinate with each other to set up a series of self-contained farms. Therefore, the hygiene and the quality of poultry meat are ensured. The director of the agriculture department of Ba Ria-Vung Tau said: “Vung Tau authorities together with other provinces are willing to support slaughter companies in HCM City to found concentration slaughtering houses under the control of the city. As well, all these houses will have distinguished brands and packages before being transported for the consumption. HCM City functional agencies will send able slaughtering companies to go to assist local slaughterhouses for the slaughtering and reserving poultry”.

 

Category: Health