Bird flu case rated 'isolated' occurrence
By Qin Yan (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-07-08 01:51

An agriculture official said Wednesday the newly confirmed bird flu case in China is only a single isolated incident and not a large-scale outbreak.

But the possibility of discovering cases in other places does exist, Zhang Zhongqiu, vice-director of the stockbreeding and veterinary bureau under the Ministry of Agriculture, said Wednesday.

A health worker burns slaughtered chickens in Chaohu, Anhui province, July 7, 2004 after an outbreak of bird flu in the area. [newsphoto]

That is because experts suspect the new case was caused by migratory birds, he said.

Located aside a lake and on a slope, the chicken farm where the disease was found is a relatively isolated place, Zhang said.

To date the ministry has not received reports of new cases, he added.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health Wednesday issued a circular requiring health departments at all levels to carry out monitoring and prevention efforts in order to prevent bird flu from infecting humans.

The national bird flu reference laboratory on Tuesday confirmed that chickens in East China's Anhui Province were killed last Saturday by the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus.

The virus was found at a chicken farm in the Juchao District, Chaohu in Anhui.

The ministry has urged stockbreeding and veterinary departments across the country to spare no efforts in epidemic prevention, Zhang said.

In another development, Anhui provincial government has issued an urgent circular to demand local governments and related departments deal seriously with regular epidemic control measures, standardize control over poultry raising and strictly sterilize chicken or duck farms.

The circular also said that an epidemic monitoring system and a related information network should be established by local governments at all levels.

A farmer drives his tractor back into the area restricted for a new bird flu case in Juchao District, Chaohu of Anhui Province, East China. People living inside the area seemed to have somewhat of a normal life Wednesday. But poultry within a 3-kilometre radius were killed and deeply buried. [newsphoto]

Supervision should focus on poultry farms and areas that have reported bird flu cases before and on those that were in danger.

According to the circular, local governments should pay compensation to those who suffer losses from compulsory poultry vaccination and slaughter.

Beijing and South China's Guangdong Province have taken measures to prevent the disease from entering, the China News Service reported Wednesday.

The supply of avian products from Anhui to Beijing has been temporarily stopped.

Yao Jiezhang with the Beijing directing office for animal epidemic control said the trade of avian products in Beijing remains normal because Anhui is distant from Beijing.

While the Guangdong quarantine authority has urged avian farms which supply livee avian products to Hong Kong and Macao to keep away wild birds.

The new case is the first one since China announced it had stamped out the disease last March 16.

Bird flu was firstly detected on January 27 at a duck farm in the Dingdang Township, South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Since then, China slaughtered nearly 9 million birds.

During that period of time, altogether 49 cases of bird flu were confirmed and controlled. So far, no humans contracted the disease in China.

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