November 11, 2005

China's Liaoning reports new outbreak of bird flu
 

China on Friday confirmed a fresh outbreak of bird flu in its north-eastern province of Liaoning, the fourth such report in the region in a week.

The outbreak, confirmed by lab tests late Thursday, killed 300 chickens in Beining, a village in the municipality of Jinzhou, where another outbreak was reported a day earlier, the Ministry of Agriculture said in a report to the World Organisation for Animal Health.

It said that 2.5 million birds in the area surrounding the outbreak had been destroyed.

The cause of the outbreak was thought to be contact with wild birds; state media reports earlier said magpies in the region were carrying bird flu.

China has reported no confirmed human cases of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, which has killed at least 63 people since it resurfaced in Asia in 2003.

The Ministry of Agriculture said 198 million birds had been vaccinated in Liaoning, in an effort to stop the disease from spreading further.