Vietnam Opens Lab Test Facility for Bird Flu, Other Diseases, in Mountain Province

The Vietnam News Agency earlier this week noted in a small item that the country has opened a molecular biology laboratory in mountainous Yen Bai province, which is some 180 kilometers from Hanoi, accessible by rail and road.

The lab will process tests for Avian flu (H5N1), hepatitis B and measles viruses, which previously had to be done in Hanoi, the report said.

The new laboratory will also provide training for medical workers in the regional northwest of the country and will include the nearby provinces of Lao Cai, Phu Tho, Son La and Dien Bien provinces, according to the article.

Yen Bai has a population of some 700,000 people, including many ethnic populations, living in a forested region known for its cinnamon and tea production and home to the black crested gibbon Nomascus concolor and, according to a recent survey (click here to read PDF), some 106 species of birds, including hornbills.

But the location of this rural lab is interesting given that Vietnam is a hot spot for the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, or bird flu, which has affected 64 people, and killed 21 from December to June there, according to the World Health Organization.

Since the first bird flu patient was detected in Vietnam in late 2003, up to 91 human cases of infections, including 41 fatalities, have been reported in 31 cities and provinces, according to the Xinua news agency of China.

In an editorial in this week's Annals of Internal Medicine, authors John Bartlett of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Frederick Hayden of the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center, say that, so far, the H5N1 virus does not appeared to have the elements of human-to-human transmission necessary for a pandemic, but warn that the US has only enough the antiviral oseltamavir (Tamilflu) in its strategic national stockpile to treat 1 percent of the country's population. Oseltamavir is the only antiviral drug known to be effective against avian flu.

Through December 2004, the US had stockpiled enough oseltamivir for 2.3 million people, Julie Gerberding, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Congress in committee testimony in November.

Research studies to test a vaccine to protect humans against H5N1 virus began in April 2005.

For more on Vietnam and the H5NI virus, see the producer's journal for the PBS WideAngle documentary "H5N1 Killer Flu" by Micah Fink, a classmate from journalism graduate school at Columbia University.