China on high alert against bird flu
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-11-16 08:51

China has strengthened supervision and monitoring on the bird flu as new cases of the epidemic outbreak were reported in two counties of northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Tuesday.

China's National Avian Flu Reference Laboratory confirmed the virus , which was found in the dead fowls sent from some family farms in Zepu Country and Urumqi County, both in southern Xinjiang, the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, said the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) on Tuesday.

In the two bird flu-hit counties, a total of 322,500 family birds within a radius of three kilometers have been culled, and poultry and products markets within ten kilometers have been closed, the ministry said

"The epidemic is basically put under control," said Qian Zhi, Vice chairman of Xinjiang, adding the two county have bought a large quantity of vaccine, protective suits and disinfectors to prevent the spread of the disease.

The local government in Xinjiang launched its quick-response mechanism timely, blockading the epidemic zone immediately and disinfecting the people, vehicles and relevant goods going in and out.

All the poultry in the epidemic zone have been killed and disposed of innocuously, and all the poultry markets within 10 kilometers from the epidemic zone have been closed.

Xinjiang's new cases have aroused great attention across the country as just one day ago the MOA announced another highly pathogenic bird flu outbreak at a village near Huainan city of east China's Anhui Province, which involved nearly 130,000 fowls killed.

The ministry has sent expert panels and supervision teams to Anhui and Xinjiang to assist epidemic control.

Other provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have strengthened monitoring on poultry farms and the migrant birds, which are said to be carriers of the deadly disease virus.

South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has set up special monitoring stations at its eight counties bordering Vietnam, which is also suffering from bird flu.

In addition, Guangxi's health departments have resumed the monitoring on fever cases in hospitals and started to vaccine the disease-vulnerable population, such as the old, children, medical workers and poultry farmers, traders and butchers.

In eastern province of Fujian, the provincial forestry department has set up 24 monitoring stations for migrant birds in their major habitats.

The stations are required to make a daily report on whether there are abnormal death of migrant birds.

In Changchun, provincial capital of northeast China's Jilin Province, the government has started to vaccine pigeons in the city in fear of spreading of the disease by the bird.

Amid the uneasy atmosphere caused bird flu, the news that the quarantine on the epidemic was lifted in Tianchang City of Anhui and Xiangtan County of central China's Hunan Province on Tuesday injected confidence for the Chinese government on its disease control capacity.

A bird flu outbreak was reported in Wantang Village, Xiangtan County on October 18 and in Tianchang on October 20 respectively.

All signs of the bird flu there have been eradicated and no new bird flu cases reported in the last 21 days in the two places after a three-week isolation, according to the MOA.

At Wantang Village of Xiangtan county, veterinary staff and villagers celebrated the end of the quarantine by burning their protective suits and warning banners that had been used to cordoned off the area.

The live poultry markets 10 kilometers in circumference from the affected region were also allowed to reopen.

Despite the victory, the provinces of Anhui and Huhan have kept a close eye on the formerly affected areas to avoid reoccurrence of the disease.