First fears, now a bit more calm
HÀ NỘI — Hương Lê heard the news about one neighbor from another. One person in this city’s central Đống Đa district had just died of avian flu, becoming Vietnam’s 42nd — and most recent — victim.
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 HÀ N?I — Huong Lê heard the news about one neighbor from another. One person in this city’s central Ð?ng Ða district had just died of avian flu, becoming Vietnam’s 42nd — and most recent — victim. And the man who relayed the news was upset, yelling that no one should go near the victim’s house, that his family had to leave the area. Hoàng Anh Nguy?n, a reporter for the VietnamNet Web site, tracked down the victim’s family and arranged an interview. But he couldn’t find a cameraman to come with him and film it; they all were afraid of getting the disease themselves. Eventually, his boss forced someone to go. These incidents happened late last year, when there was a frightening new report every day in Vi?t Nam about bird flu. Live chicken, once a common sight, disappeared from the streets of the capital. Most restaurants stopped serving poultry dishes. Even the ubiquitous bánh mì stalls stopped selling egg sandwiches. The world is long overdue for another flu pandemic, experts say, and if the H5N1 virus that has wreaked havoc among bird flocks mutates and becomes easy to spread from human to human, this could be the big one. Since its origins in Asia, the H5N1 strain of avian flu has popped up in bird flocks all over the world, including in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. There have been human deaths in nine countries. As of June 16, this strain has killed 129 people out of 227 infected, according to the World Health Organization. Globally, more than 200 million birds have been killed. America has taken note. Last month, the White House released its updated pandemic strategy where it warned that, in a worst-case scenario, 40 percent of the workforce could be off the job, people might be refused the right to travel, and 2 million Americans could die. Yet Vi?t Nam — where the disease first re-emerged in December 2003 and where there are more human deaths than in any other country struck by bird flu — is calm. After drastic measures by the government, in January Vi?t Nam became the first country to announce it had contained bird flu (Thailand is the second). The country even survived the flu and T?t festival season — when families gather and chicken is a traditional central dish — without another outbreak or human case. The concern is still there, but the fear is calmed. Dr. Hans Troedsson, the World Health Organization’s representative in Vi?t Nam, said he was surprised Vi?t Nam contained bird flu so soon after its latest poultry outbreaks in December. “Since the virus was so widely circulating in the environment and so entrenched in the poultry population, we were expecting poultry cases and human cases during the peak season” between December and March, he said in a phone interview. But instead, the government kicked itself into high gear, Troedsson said. There was mass culling, mass vaccination, and an information campaign that included billboards telling people to wash their hands as well as television commercials, like one where a woman thinks her husband has bird flu and asks a local official what the symptoms are and what she should do. “The combination of action clearly has had an impact, because the virus didn’t go away by itself, that’s for sure,” he added. In November, live poultry markets and duck blood pudding were banned, and poultry disappeared from most Haø Noäi menus and markets, unless it was imported from outside Vi?t Nam. Donald Berger, the Canadian owner of The Vine, a high-end restaurant here in the city, said the government never issued a clear ban on chicken, but most eateries opted to stop serving it anyway. Not his. The Vine not only continued to sell chicken, it continued to sell chicken raised in Vi?t Nam, albeit by a French-run farm. “The chicken here is lovely, almost like a free-range chicken,” Berger said. “To me it was a media problem rather than a health problem. Nobody ever dies from eating chicken.” He said his patrons were concerned, but no one stopped sampling chicken for themselves. However, for large functions and parties, no one ordered chicken dishes for their guests. By January, the Vietnamese government announced that bird flu had been “contained.” That announcement brought differing reactions from Hanoians. Some, like Liên Lê, 19, continued to avoid poultry. “Most of my friends choose to eat chicken because they think that everybody else does, and they didn’t get chicken flu, so why don’t you eat it?” she said then. “But my family is very careful about that... There are some rumors that the chicken they sell in the supermarket, they run out of safe chicken, so [the market] buys chicken from farmers that don’t have government approval.” But most people, like Huong Lê, 17, immediately began eating poultry again. “I think chicken is safe now,” she said. “I think that my government used many ways to stop chicken flu and I’ve heard the news there’s no bird flu in Hà N?i or in other cities around Hà N?i.” Although life has largely returned to normal, there are still a few restaurants that won’t serve chicken, including Chiên Béo, which specializes in meat dishes. The popular spot — good luck finding a seat during lunch or dinnertime — hasn’t served it since late 2005, and its owner doesn’t see that changing anytime soon. “They say people are bringing chicken in from China,” she said, referring to recent news accounts that poultry which hasn’t been tested or vaccinated against H5N1 is being smuggled into Vi?t Nam. “So we won’t serve it.” And even Troedsson, who lauded Vi?t Nam for its high governmental commitment, said that although the country is currently disease-free, it’s likely not virus-free. “The virus is still circulating; of course it could have a recurrence,” he said. “So it’s very important that everyone is kept vigilant on this one and not scaling down efforts that have been taken.”
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