China, Vietnam take steps

A U.S. agriculture official warned against overreacting to the disease.
BEIJING (AP) -- China ordered tighter monitoring for bird flu and more aggressive vaccine research Wednesday while a U.S. envoy urged caution in banning poultry imports, saying excessive steps could discourage nations from reporting outbreaks.
China's latest measures were announced by Premier Wen Jiabao and read on the national TV evening news. They threatened punishment for anyone who fails to report an outbreak.
"The government at all levels must make efforts to achieve victory over bird flu," Wen was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, Vietnam banned raw blood pudding and poultry-raising in big cities as Asian governments stepped up measures to prevent a possible human outbreak that health experts worry could kill millions.
U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture Charles Lambert met with Chinese agriculture and quarantine officials in Beijing and said the two governments would increase technical cooperation and information exchanges.
"If countries overreact and are overly punitive in their reaction when this disease is reported, that reduces the incentive for other countries to report," Lambert said at a news conference. Lambert said U.S. producers sell $500 million worth of poultry a year to China.
Banned poultry imports
China and Vietnam have banned poultry imports from countries with outbreaks. Vietnam has suffered more than 40 of the 62 human deaths from bird flu in Asia since 2003, while China has had three outbreaks in birds in recent weeks but no human cases.
The Chinese poultry ban affects imports of birds and related products from 14 countries and took effect Friday, according to the Agriculture Ministry Web site.
Vietnam's ban covers poultry and pet birds, according to state news media, which didn't specify the countries affected.
"From now on, processing and trading raw blood pudding from poultry and animals is strictly prohibited," the Communist Party newspaper Nhan Dan quoted a directive from Prime Minister Phan Van Khai as saying. Khai called on authorities to raise public awareness of the danger of bird flu, the paper said.
Most of the deaths from bird flu have been linked to close contact with infected birds, but experts fear the deadly H5N1 virus devastating flocks in Asia and pockets of Eastern Europe could mutate into a form easily spread from person to person and have called for increased prevention worldwide.
New measures
The new Chinese measures include increased monitoring for outbreaks, establishing a national disease warning system and punishment for anyone who hides or fails to report an outbreak, state television said.
Wen also said government would "step up research into a vaccine" and promised to cooperate with other nations and promptly report on new developments.
The report did not give more details, but the government said earlier Wednesday it was creating a $250 million fund to finance anti-bird-flu measures.
Washington also promised Tuesday to spend millions of dollars to make and test a human bird flu vaccine in Vietnam.
President Bush outlined a $7.1 billion strategy to prepare for a possible worldwide super-flu outbreak. He said the aim was to overhaul the vaccine industry so eventually every American could be inoculated within six months of a pandemic's beginning.
The Bush administration also released federal plans Wednesday saying that sustained person-to-person spread of the bird flu or any other super-influenza strain anywhere in the world could prompt the United States to implement travel restrictions or other steps to block a brewing pandemic.
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