Hanoi (dpa) - Nearly 5,000 swifts, whose nests are collected for
sale as a luxury health food, have died in southern Vietnam after
contracting the H5N1 bird flu virus, news report said Friday.
The birds, half the population of a facility in Phan Rang Thap
Cham City, died between March 28 and April 11, Tuoi Tre newspaper
reported.
The city has many so-called bird houses, where the swifts are
encouraged to build their nests, which are then collected for sale.
The nests, made largely of the birds' saliva, are a sought-after
ingredient for soup and other delicacies.
Many bird house owners expressed concern about contagion.
"My experiences show if swifts contract H5N1, it would be very
difficult to control because most of the birds fly all over the place
and only come back to the house in the evening," owner Nguyen Van
Khoi was quoted as saying.
"All our investments will go up in the air if the disease takes
hold on a large scale."
Vietnam on Tuesday confirmed a 4-year-old boy died of the bird flu
strain H5N1 in the Mekong Delta, the country's first fatality from
the virus this year.
In China, ten people have died from a new strain of the virus,
H7N9, which has only been reported in and around Shanghai since it
first appeared in March.
Copyright 2013 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH