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Bird flu: Beijing demands rapid response
By Bao Daozu (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-10-25 05:51
Huang Jiefu, vice-health minister, was quoted as saying
so during a meeting with health officials from Hong Kong and Macao last week.
A Chinese vendor cleans a slaughtered chicken
at a market in Nanjing, in east China's Jiangsu province, October 22,
2005. [newsphoto] |
But a ministry press official told China Daily yesterday: "The report is
inaccurate."
The ministry said in a statement yesterday that it signed an agreement with
representatives from Hong Kong and Macao on a mechanism to deal with unexpected
public health hazards.
In a related development, forestry authorities have set up a national network
of 118 monitoring stations to check on outbreaks of wildlife disease.
"We have got some 480 reports from provinces that have such stations," said
Zhao Liangping, an official with the State Forestry Administration (SFA).
He described some of the reports as "very important" for SFA to control
possible wildlife epidemics, including bird flu.
Three groups of experts have been sent to the provinces on the routes of
migratory birds heading south before the onset of winter.
So far this autumn, no bird flu has been reported through the monitoring
network, said Cao Qingyao, a spokesman for SFA.
Meanwhile, South China's Guangdong Province will set up a number of wild bird
monitoring stations in Guangzhou, Shantou, Zhanjiang and Sihui.
Experts are worried that Asians are more likely to be affected by the virus,
given the traditional methods of raising poultry in the region.
"The risk of bird-to-human contact in Europe is far less than in Asia,"
Alejandro Thiermann, president of the International Animal Health Code for the
animal health body OIE, said in an interview with Reuters.
(China Daily 10/25/2005 page1)
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