VietNamNet Bridge – There's a high risk of blue-ear disease spreading further among pigs, and localities have been urged to stay alert.

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Deputy director of the Animal Health Department Dam Xuan Thanh said new outbreaks of the disease continued to be discovered in northern localities.

He told a meeting of the National Steering Committee on Bird Flu Prevention and Control on Tuesday that hot weather in the north created favourable conditions for the spread of blue-ear virus while some localities remained inattentive to preventing the disease, such as failing to report affected cases or culling infected pigs.

The transporting of infected pigs among provinces also posed a high risk of further spread of the disease, he added.

The disease has infected five provinces in the north: Bac Giang, Nam Dinh, Phu Tho, Dien Bien and Yen Bai.

Bac Giang province is the latest locality to have reported to get the disease with 149 sick pigs and four dead on 75 pig farms in Luc Ngan District.

In Dien Bien province, the disease has forced the culling of more than 8,800 pigs while more than 2,600 pigs in Yen Bai province were infected by the virus.

The animal health department sent missions to check prevention and control the situation in affected provinces and provided them with vaccines against the disease.

Head of Phu Tho province's animal health department Nguyen Tat Thanh said the province had set up six quarantine stations with people on guard around the clock to check animals and poultry transported into the province and to decontaminate affected areas to prevent further spread of the disease.

Early this month, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development sent an urgent message to localities to ask for drastic measures to prevent blue-ear disease.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News