The government filed a report with the World Organisation for
Animal Health (OIE) yesterday saying an outbreak of avian influenza
in central China's Hunan
Province dating back to Saturday has killed 545 chickens and
ducks, prompting authorities to destroy 2,487 others and vaccinate
43,750.
The outbreak, in the village of Wantang in Xiangtan County, was
confirmed as involving the H5N1 strain of bird flu by the National
Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory at the Chinese Academy of
Agricultural Sciences' Harbin Veterinary Research Institute on
Tuesday.
Altogether, 687 birds were reported to have shown symptoms of
the disease.
The outbreak was reported to the OIE by Jia Youling, national
veterinary officer and director general of the Ministry of
Agriculture's Veterinary Bureau, and is the third involving H5N1 to
be reported in China this month, though no human cases have been
identified.
2,600 infected chickens and ducks were confirmed as having died
in Tengjiaying Village in Hohhot, Inner
Mongolia Autonomous Region last Wednesday in an outbreak that
was dated by the ministry to have started on October 14.
Over 90,000 other birds were destroyed in and around the
affected area and 166,177 vaccinated, and the ministry told the OIE
that the cause of the outbreak was contact with wild birds.
In Liangying Village, Tianchang City in the eastern province of
Anhui,
550 deaths amongst chicken and geese were confirmed to have been
caused by H5N1 on Monday. The start of the outbreak was dated as
October 20, and the ministry said 44,736 other birds were destroyed
and 140,000 vaccinated.
The cause of the Anhui outbreak was given to the OIE as unknown
or inconclusive, and it went unspecified for the infections in
Hunan.
Hong Kong's Health, Welfare and Food Bureau said yesterday that
it has suspended imports of poultry and poultry meat from
Hunan.
A bureau spokesperson said there were currently no such imports
from Hunan but should there be any applications they would be
withheld from processing to ensure food safety.
Bird flu has killed more than 60 people, more than two thirds of
whom were in Vietnam, and resulted in the deaths of tens of
millions of poultry in Asia since 2003. Four other Chinese
outbreaks were reported to the OIE this year prior to this month's,
and cases amongst birds have also been confirmed in Europe in the
past few weeks.
The fourth Indonesian human death from bird flu was confirmed on
Monday by the WHO as having taken place at the end of
September.
(China Daily October 26, 2005)