Vietnam has detected one more commune hit by bird flu, raising the total of affected communes nationwide to three with nearly 8,300 fowls killed by the disease or culled by local veterinary agencies, according to local newspaper Youth on Friday.

A bird flu outbreak was spotted in Khanh Hai commune, Tran Van Thoi district, southern Ca Mau province on Dec. 20. It made 26 chickens sick and killed 13 others in the commune.

Since early December, the disease has stricken three communes in two districts in Ca Mau and southern Bac Lieu province, killing and leading to the forced culling of 1,092 chickens and 7,202 ducks, the newspaper quoted the Department of Animal Health under the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development as saying.

After seeing no bird flu outbreaks for nearly one year, Vietnam detected that two communes in two districts in the two southern provinces of Ca Mau and Bac Lieu were affected by the disease early this month.

The disease first broke out in Tran Van Thoi district on Dec. 6, killing 490 chickens and 2,033 ducks, and stroke Bac Lieu's Hoa Binh district on Dec. 7, killing 3,550 out of 4,450 ducks.

All the poultry were over one month old, which had been hatched unlawfully by local people and had not been vaccinated against bird flu, the department said, noting that the risk of the disease spreading in the southern Mekong Delta is very high because local people have thrown dead fowls in canals, which could have distributed viruses elsewhere.

Bird flu outbreaks, starting in Vietnam in December 2003, have killed and led to the forced culling of dozens of millions of fowls. The last outbreak of bird flu among poultry in the country in 2005 was in December.

(Xinhua News Agency December 22, 2006)