Late last year, the Vietnamese government imposed a temporary ban on raising new poultry flocks to prevent bird flu spread, which made breeding chickens in short supply in Vietnam.
The ministry's Department of Animal Health said this week that 21 cities and provinces nationwide, which were hit by bird flu last October, have detected no new outbreaks for at least three weeks, meeting criteria to declare their territory free of the disease.
Under the new scheme to increase Vietnam�s poultry breeding stock, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said that one-day-old chickens in all farms specialising in breeding young poultry must be vaccinated against bird flu viruses before being sold in the market.
Vietnam had a total poultry population of 254 million by late 2002, with an annually average growth of 6.5%. However the bird flu outbreaks, which started in late 2003, have resulted in the culling and deaths of millions of poultry so far.
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