The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) will provide 50,000 USD for Vietnam to detect avian influenza H7N9 virus among smuggled poultry.

The information was revealed by Dam Xuan Thanh, deputy head of the Department of Animal Health (DAH) under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development at a conference in Hanoi on April 16.

Accordingly, samples of fowls at 60 markets near the border with China will be tested for H7N9 virus, he said.

FAO has also provided two sets of primers and probes for the Central Animal Health Diagnostic Centre to test 3,000 samples for the new virus, he added.

Thanh said the meeting of the National Steering Committee on Bird Flu Prevention and Control that one third of the 500 samples collected randomly from smuggled poultry and domestic fowls sold in the market tested negative for the virus.

Over the past two weeks, Vietnam has recorded no positive samples of avian influenza H7N9 virus among poultry, he added.-VNA