HANOI, Aug. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- The World Bank (WB) has just approvedan emergency credit worth 5 million US dollars to Vietnam to help it control of the avian influenza epidemic.

    The Vietnam Avian Influenza Emergency Recovery Project totaling6.2 million dollars is to strengthen the country's disease surveillance and diagnostic capacity and poultry industry's infrastructure, and safeguard human health by improving public awareness, said a news release issued by the WB in Vietnam on Wednesday.

    "The recent epidemic clearly revealed the inadequacy of veterinary and extension services to cope with an animal health epidemic of this nature. The project will provide much-needed technical advice to the government on the strategy it should follow to recover from the present crisis and for the future control of avian influenza epidemics," noted WB acting country director Martin Rama.

    The project will benefit poultry farmers and traders who lost their poultry as the result of the avian influenza epidemic, and help protect other farmers against such losses in future. Funding for the project includes the WB's credit, 550,000 dollars of the Food and Agriculture Organization in the form of technical assistance and training, and 650,000 dollars from the Vietnamese government.

    The recent avian influenza epidemic has been a financial disaster for Vietnam's commercial poultry industry, and affected the livelihood of millions of individual fowl raisers. Of a total of some 12 million local farming households, over 70 percent keep poultry, constituting an important source of household cash income,especially for women, said the news release.

    Bird flu has hit 11 southern localities, including Can Tho cityand 10 provinces, either killing or leading to the forced killingof nearly 63,000 poultry since late June.

    The national Anti-Bird Flu Steering Committee has just launchedan anti-bird flu month in August, aiming to comprehensively deal with outbreaks, and eventually to ensure the localities free of the disease in September.

    Bird flu killed 17 percent of Vietnam's poultry population, andclaimed 16 human lives during its outbreak in December 2003. A total of 43.2 million fowls nationwide either died or were culled,causing the local poultry industry to suffer direct losses of 1.3 trillion Vietnamese dong (82.8 million dollars). Enditem