March 3, 2006

 

China sees more bird flu outbreaks in spring

 

 

China's vice premier on Thursday (Mar 2) forecast possible bird flu outbreaks during the coming spring migratory season.

 

The prediction is based on a "comprehensive analysis", the official Xinhua News agency said, citing Vice Premier Hui Liangyu, speaking at a conference on prevention and control of the disease.

 

Hui heads the national headquarter for preventing and controlling the disease.

 

The recent discoveries of birds infected with the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus strain in the Middle East, Western Europe and Africa have reinforced the belief that wild birds are spreading the disease.

 

Earlier in the day, the government announced it is setting up a surveillance system in an eastern province to monitor wild birds in an attempt to fight the spread of bird flu on a major migration route.

 

Xinhua said 100 monitoring stations and 1,000 workers will be spread throughout Jiangsu province.

 

Experts estimate that about 3 million migratory birds will fly to Jiangsu in the next two months as the weather warms, and 5 million more will pass through, Xinhua said. It did not give more details about the birds' routes.

 

"The huge quantity of migrant birds is a severe challenge. A single infected bird may infect its whole group," the agency quoted Xu Huiqiang, an official with the Jiangsu Forestry Bureau, as saying.

 

Inspectors will check dead birds and test droppings, and any sign of bird flu will trigger an emergency response, it said, without elaborating.

 

It said migratory birds are believed to have carried the H5N1 virus that caused six bird flu outbreaks in four Chinese provinces since October.

 

Outbreaks in China's poultry have continued despite a mass inoculation effort.

 

Jiangsu is on one of the world's major bird migration routes, with about 280 species flying there each year and another 180 living in the province's vast lakes and wetlands, Xinhua said.