Vietnam has temporarily banned the granting of import licences to USpoultry products as of May 1 due to a bird flu outbreak in the US.
The Animal Health Department under the Ministry ofAgriculture and Rural Development urged relevant agencies across thecountry to strictly inspect batches of poultry meat imported from theNorth American market.
Contracts signed before May 1already on their way to Vietnam will be allowed to clear customsafter undergoing strict health quarantine inspections, according to thedepartment.
Vietnam imported over 34,000 tonnesof frozen chicken from the US in the first quarter of this year, anannual rise of 46 percent.
Bird flu is spreadingamong wild birds, chickens and turkeys across much of the US,including 13 states suffering from the worst outbreak of the disease inthe past three decades.
Since December 2014, casesof the highly pathogenic H5 avian influenza virus have spread through 16states in the Midwest and western parts of the country as well as someparts of Canada, infecting nearly seven million birds, according to theUS Department of Agriculture.-VNA