Vietnam culls 100,000 poultry in bird flu outbreak

Vietnam has culled more 100,000 poultry so far this year in a bid to contain the spread of bird flu in the Southeast Asian country.

The country has reported outbreaks of the highly pathogenic H5N1 and H5N6 bird flu strains in 14 provinces, the government said in a statement on its website on Monday.

“The risk for the outbreaks to spread on a larger scale is very high,” the statement said.

Vietnam has a poultry flock of around 460 million birds, and small-scale bird flu outbreaks have occurred sporadically in the country during the past few years.

On January 11, India announced that bird flu has been confirmed in 10 of its states.

In December 2020, World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said Ukraine reported an outbreak of highly pathogenic bird flu among backyard birds in the southern part of the country.

Avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, has been spreading rapidly in Europe, putting the poultry industry on alert after previous outbreaks led to the culling of tens of millions of birds.