February 2, 2004

 

 

Shanghai Poultry Trade Grinds To A Halt Amid Bird Flu Scare
 

Live poultry trade in China's densely populated financial hub of Shanghai has ground to a halt following the spread of the bird flu virus to the region.

 

Ten out of 33 regions in the world's most populous nation have confirmed or suspected outbreaks of the avian influenza that has spread to 10 Asian countries and killed at least 10 people in Vietnam and Thailand.

 

"Shanghai has halted the trading and killing of live poultry at wholesale markets," the Shanghai government said.

 

"The animal epidemic prevention centre will also provide free inoculation of poultry around the city," the city said.

 

China has yet to report any human cases of the flu.

 

Shanghai had already begun culling hundreds of thousands of chickens, ducks and other fowl in the city's southern Nanhui district after poultry at a private farm was suspected to have been infected with bird flu.

 

Chinese authorities have been culling poultry within three km (two miles) of infected farms, vaccinating birds within five km (three miles) and has established a national command headquarters to battle the disease.

 

"This represents a wide swath of China," World Health Organisation spokesman Roy Wadia said of the 10 provinces and regions with confirmed or suspected outbreaks -- from Xinjiang in the west to Shanghai in the east and from Yunnan, Guangxi and Guangdong in the south to Hubei, Henan and Anhui in central China.

 

"It is very possible that some of these areas have had outbreaks for some time now, and that surveillance systems either did not pick them up, or that surveillance systems in some areas may be non-existent," he said.

 

"WHO has long urged China to assess its animal surveillance systems, especially in high-risk areas with large poultry populations, and more so in light of the avian flu outbreaks in Vietnam and other countries near China."

 

China is also fighting to keep another deadly virus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), from resurfacing.

 

A Chinese doctor in the southern province of Guangdong was confirmed last week as China's fourth SARS case since a global epidemic was declared over last July.