No bird flu has broken out in Chinese poultry since late
September, but that gives no reason for the country to be
optimistic, Vice-Minister of Agriculture Yin Chengjie said
yesterday.
"Judging from the global epidemic situation and China's own
control efforts, there remain quite a few uncertainties over a
possible bird flu outbreak," Yin said yesterday in Beijing.
The deadly strain of avian influenza was recently discovered on
an English farm and has killed another woman in Indonesia, though
in China the last outbreak was reported on September 20 and
eradicated within a month.
However, as spring is the peak season for infections and there
are "weak links" in the country's front line against contagion,
fighting bird flu remains an uphill battle, the vice-minister
said.
The more frequent transfer of domestic birds during the Spring
Festival, which starts on Sunday, may increase the risk of the
virus spreading, he said.
In addition, the country has long borders, making it possible
for bird flu from other countries to invade through ports or border
markets, he added.
So in the days to come, the ministry will continue to combine
vaccination with culling, while blocking the spread of infections
from overseas sources, Yin said.
He said the ministry is building an animal ID and epidemic
tracing system partly through requiring livestock raisers to keep
records.
Summarizing the result of last year's bird flu control as
"better than expected," Yin singled out the outbreaks in the Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province, where efforts were made to
prevent infections among wild birds from spreading to either humans
or domestic fowl.
As vaccination has been proven to be one of the best options for
bird flu control, China gave 10.6 billion shots to its poultry last
year, according to ministry statistics.
The country has at least 15 billion domestic birds, or 34
percent of the world's total. Some of the birds are not vaccinated
at the request of their importers, but are instead safeguarded by
other measures, the country's Chief Veterinary Officer Jia Youling
told China Daily yesterday.
Jia, also chief of the ministry's Veterinary Bureau, said the
country pooled about 1.7 billion yuan (US$218 million) last year to
fight animal epidemics like bird flu and foot-and-mouth
disease.
In addition to providing free vaccination and compensation to
farmers who culled their flocks to prevent bird flu spreading, the
funds were also used to support the development of animal
husbandry, he said.
The country has developed methods to detect the deadly strain of
bird flu on site half an hour after a suspected outbreak is
reported, so that immediate measures can be taken to curb the
spread of the infection, Jia said.
It takes one to two days for virus samples to be flown to the
national avian influenza reference laboratory in Harbin, northeast
China's Heilongjiang Province, for further confirmation he
said.
(China Daily February 13, 2007)