At a regular meeting of the National Steering Committee on Bird Flu Prevention and Control, Minister Phat, who is also head of the committee, urged all local authorities to continue tightening supervision and management of egg-hatching activities and newly-hatched poultry, particularly waterfowl. They were also asked to intensify bird flu prevention measures.

This year's first round of vaccination for all poultry and waterfowl will be carried out until mid March and is expected to be completed in April, said Phat, adding that Vietnam plans to import 125 million doses of vaccine in March. The first batch of 20 million doses of vaccine will be imported on March 10 and will be supplied free-of-charge for small poultry-raising households.

At the meeting, the Ministry of Health affirmed that Vietnam has seen no new cases of the H5N1 virus human affection since November 14, 2005. However, all localities were required to strengthen surveillance of poultry farms, particularly those in northern Hai Duong province where a bird flu outbreak was detected on February 14. However, no new outbreaks have been discovered in the province over the past nine days.