(China Daily/AFP)
Updated: 2005-12-01 06:02

With 29 outbreaks of the disease discovered so far this year, China is seeking to vaccinate its estimated 5.2 billion farm raised birds, but requires manufacturers to have a license to produce the vaccines.

Police said that the Jinyu Corporation failed to apply for a license from the state to manufacture bird flu vaccines for poultry, but labelled its products with fake government licensing numbers, it said.

Investigators found the fake vaccines were used on farms in Liaoning's Jinzhou region, where an outbreak of bird flu occurred in mid-October, the report said.

Some 2.5 million farm raised birds were culled in the Jinzhou region following the outbreak, devastating the livelihood of farmers in the region.

The relationship between the two suspected companies was not immediately clear, but one man arrested, Wang Jiafu, was a vice director of the Jinyu Corporation as well as the legal representative of the Inner Mongolian Biological Medical Products Factory, it said.

The government warned this month that the use of fake vaccines in Liaoning could have disastrous consequences for China.

"The use of fake and shoddy vaccines will result in a disaster," Agriculture Minister Du Qingling said on November 9.

"If the vaccines are not up to standard, then immunization to the virus will not be uniform or effective. This could bring huge losses."

Farms in Liaoning were highly concentrated, Du said, meaning that any problems in vaccinating poultry could result in the epidemic spreading.

"If we miss the chance to exterminate the virus in the early stages, then the difficulty in wiping it out will increase by several times, as will the spread of the epidemic," Du said.

"We must fully recognize that at present there is a possibility that the epidemic will spread and expand. This is not an exaggeration just to scare people."

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