Bird flu patients in Vietnam will not have to pay for medical equipment and the medicine branded Tamiflu, local newspaper Pioneer on Friday quoted a local health official as saying.

The Health Ministry is proactively preparing for potential bird flu outbreak among humans, and anyone who are infected with bird flu will receive free treatment, director of the ministry's Treatment Department Ly Ngoc Kinh said, noting that the medicine will be distributed to healthcare establishment in high-risk areas.

The ministry now has nearly 1 million Tamiflu capsules in stock. It plans to import more bird flu medicines in the coming time. Now, a Tamiflu capsule costs some 40,000 Vietnamese dong (2.5 US dollars).

The ministry said Vietnam is only capable of dealing with medium-scale bird flu outbreak among humans, or some 2 percent of the 82-million population. If a large outbreak occurs, the country will have to rely on international help.

Up to 91 Vietnamese people have been infected with bird flu since the disease started to break out in the country in late 2003. Of them 41 have died.

Vietnam has targeted the vaccination for over 150 million fowls nationwide by late next month. To date, 37 cities and provinces have used 57 million doses of bird flu vaccines. The country is importing additional 260 million doses.

Source: Xinhua