Vietnam added its voice yesterday to assurances from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization that there was no proof yet that pigs were infected with bird flu, the disease which has killed 18 people across Asia.
The denial came as Asian nations battled accusations of being slow to react to outbreaks and mulled calls from international health experts to launch a widespread vaccination program to curb the spread of avian influenza.
Bui Quang Anh, director of the Vietnamese agriculture ministry's veterinarian department, said blood samples from 179 pigs had been sent to laboratories in Hong Kong but had tested negative for the H5N1 virus.
"I can officially declare that we have not found evidence of bird flu in pigs," he told AFP.
On Friday, however, the FAO's Vietnam director Anton Rychener said the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu had been detected in nasal swabs taken from pigs in the capital and its surroundings.
His comments were swiftly played down by the UN agency's Rome headquarters.
Peter Roeder, an FAO veterinary virologist and animal health expert, advised "caution in the interpretation of diagnostic results" generated by tests that do not conform to international standards.
"At this time we have seen no data that would indicate that pigs are in any way involved in spreading the current strain of the H5N1 influenza virus," he said.
At present, the virus, is transmitted from poultry to humans but cannot be transmitted from humans to humans.
However, the World Health Organization has warned that H5N1 could kill millions across the globe if it combined with a human influenza virus to create a new highly contagious strain transmissible among humans.
This situation could be exacerbated if pigs are found to carry H5N1, as experts say they are an ideal "mixing vessel" in which viruses swap genes, become more lethal or contagious and then leap to humans.
But despite the fact that virologists have known for several years that flu viruses can pass between species, including pigs and poultry, FAO headquarters said there was no evidence this was happening in Vietnam.
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