Vietnam has been one of the worst hit countries for the H5N1 bird flu virus...

The government of Vietnam has been praised by the United Nations for the methods in which it has controlled and stopped bird flu pandemics that have occurred in their country. According to Hoang Van Nam who is one of the senior members of the Vietnam Veterinary Agency which comes under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the problem of the bird flu virus in the northern part of Vietnam has been taken under control.

He said that in the last few days no new disease had been reported in this area and this was largely due to their swift action in culling thousands and thousands of domestic birds. In Vietnam now only in one province namely Dien Bien were any new cases of the virus reported recently and the majority of the nation can now claim to be bird flu free.

The most important thing for a country like Vietnam is that the local people are educated in the dangers of the bird flu virus and that it is made clear to them that they must inform the authorities if they come across any dead birds and not tried to cover up anything. It is also important that local people realise that they can catch the bird flu themselves if they are in close contact with birds.

Vietnam has been one of the worst hit countries for the H5N1 bird flu virus but has coped well nevertheless. The Food and Agriculture Organisation which is a part of the United Nations said that Vietnam still needed to undertake more bird vaccinations and that farmers have to follow the rules exactly on how birds were to be monitored.

The United Nations has helped many countries organise the procedures in response to bird flu outbreaks and has millions of doses of the bird flu drug Tamiflu which it will fly into any area where people start to contract the virus.