Agriculture officials yesterday urged local governments to focus
on their vaccination duties to help prevent fresh bird flu
outbreaks this fall.
"This is a peak period for some serious animal diseases, such as
bird flu," Yin Chengjie, vice-minister of agriculture, said during
a meeting on prevention work in Beijing yesterday.
"Preventive measures are particularly crucial at this time
because of the sharp increase in live poultry sales before the
Mid-Autumn Festival and National Holiday," he said.
Yin said cases of bird flu have shown up across the globe, and
the regular outbreaks of the disease in neighboring countries
continue to pose a huge threat.
The call for vigilance came as the ministry confirmed that
thousands of ducks in Panyu District, Guangzhou, south China's
Guangdong Province, had been killed by the H5N1 virus.
More than 36,000 ducks had been culled by Monday after a subtype
of the H5N1 bird flu strain killed some 9,830 ducks raised in
Panyu's Sixian village since September 5.
And the Guangzhou government plans to cull another 100,000
domestic fowl within a radius of 3 km to keep the outbreak from
spreading, local authorities said.
Meanwhile, compulsory vaccinations and disinfections will be
carried out within an area measuring 5 sq km, and all poultry
markets within a 13-km radius will be closed.
The local government has pledged to compensate farmers for their
economic losses and said the amount of the compensation would be
decided soon.
More than 50 poultry farmers in the village are being given
blood tests and medical checkups.
A headquarters has been established to take charge of bird flu
outbreak control and prevention, according to the local
agricultural bureau.
Six supervision teams have been dispatched to different regions
in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province, to help oversee
the vaccination of all domestic fowl in the city, which is to be
completed by next Tuesday, the bureau said.
Local agricultural officials will inspect poultry breeding
plants and prod them to disinfect their premises regularly.
Yin said a monitoring network and pre-warning system should be
set up at the grassroots level.
Mysterious poultry deaths are to be reported immediately, and
anyone found suppressing or delaying information about a potential
outbreak will be punished.
The ministry said it would dispatch 12 special supervisory work
teams as well as expert teams to supervise the prevention work
nationwide.
(China Daily September 19, 2007)