Dog Meat Restaurants in Hanoi

April 29/ 2008 - In the face of yet another outbreak of cholera, Vietnam's capital city, Hanoi, is closing down dog meat restaurants and unhygienic street food stalls, but not enough is being done to address Hanoi's decrepit sanitation system, a major source of the illness, according to health officials.

Hanoi's sewers date back to French colonial times when the city was relatively small. Today, it teems with more than three million people yet the sanitation infrastructure is largely unchanged from the late 1800s.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 2,490 cases of acute diarrhoea were reported in Vietnam between 5 March and 22 April. A total of 377 people tested positive for vibrio cholerae, mostly in Hanoi.

In response to the recent outbreak, the third since October, Hanoi's health department has closed dozens of dog meat butchers and restaurants in the capital. Because the dogs are not reared for consumption, the meat is often contaminated.

In addition, it has urged people to avoid street food stalls. A ban on using excrement to fertilise crops has been put in place as well. Health authorities have also repeatedly warned people not to wash fruit and vegetables in the highly polluted lakes and ponds.

But Hanoi's public health officials concede they can only do so much. "There are more than 260 inspection delegations at all levels throughout the city every day," said the frustrated director of the Hanoi Health Department, Le Anh Tuan. "We have shut down dog meat restaurants that failed to meet the food safety and hygiene requirements.