December 27, 2005

China should change farming practices in bird flu fight

Asia Pacific head of the World Health Organization, Shigeru Omi, said China should change its farming practices to prevent new bird flu outbreaks in the long term.

The common practice in China of raising different types of animals together and living near to animals must be changed, Omi said.

Omi added that segregation of animals was one of the most important ways to prevent the spread of bird flu. But he stated that it could not be done overnight as China had a large poultry population.

The WHO official called for China to improve the primitive farming practices in rural regions, "especially the backyard feeding of chickens and ducks."

Most of the 14.2 billion poultry produced annually in China are raised in farmers' backyards.

Scientists fear that close contact among poultry, other farm animals and humans could provide an environment for the H5N1 bird flu virus to mutate into a more deadly strain.

Such a strain might spread easily among humans and cause a pandemic that could kill millions of people, experts said.

China's chief veterinary officer, Jia Youling, said preventing bird flu outbreaks nationwide was difficult due to "primitive management" of many backyard farms.