January 28, 2004

 

 

China Bird Flu Under Control

 

The Chinese authorities have declared the bird flu situation in southern China under control.

 

"The county government has urgently dispatched officials to the farm. The virus has been put under effective control right now and there is no sign of spreading," an official with the Longan county government in Guangxi said.

 

He confirmed state media reports that all 14,000 poultry within a radius of three km of the farm had been killed and poultry within a radius of five km had been quarantined.

 

The ducks on the farm in Guangxi province were killed by the deadly H5N1 strain, which caused deaths in Vietnam and Thailand on a rapid sprint across Asia.

 

Officials in central Hubei and southern Hunan provinces said they had dispatched provincial health and agriculture officials to local farms to investigate the deaths of chickens.

 

But they had no immediate confirmation that the deaths were caused by the same strain of bird flu that has killed eight people in Southeast Asia.

 

"We are still investigating," said an official at the Hubei provincial health department.

The WHO, FAO and Chinese health and agriculture officials were scheduled to meet in Beijing later on Wednesday to discuss an action plan.

 

"They've asked for international help in containing the outbreak," WHO spokesman Roy Wadia said by telephone. "Our push is to get everyone talking at the same time."

 

The Beijing Youth Daily quoted the capital's deputy health chief Liang Wannian as urging residents not to panic.

 

"Judging from the materials available, it's still an extremely individual phenomenon that humans get infected with bird flu... There is no evidence of human-to-human infections, so there is no need for city residents to panic."

 

Wednesday is the last day of the week-long Lunar New Year holidays, during which families in their millions feast at home and at restaurants. Chicken and duck -- most famously Peking Duck in the capital -- are among the favorite dishes.

 

In China, according to USDA figures, nearly four out of five chickens are raised on household farms, making epidemics harder to control. The world's most populous country, which also accounts for 46 percent of total world egg production, said it had followed all the right procedures after discovering the case on the Guangxi farm.

 

"We are keen to help China," Henk Bekedam, the WHO representative in China, said in a statement.

 

"Openness, transparency and collaboration are strong tools in helping identify and tackle a public health crisis."