Friday, May 05, 2006
China confirms bird flu outbreak
China today confirmed an outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu among wild birds in a remote area in the north western part of the country where 123 wild geese died.
The outbreak in Qinghai Province was confirmed by the national bird flu lab on Wednesday, and the number of dead wild birds had risen to 123 by yesterday, The Ministry of Agriculture said on its website.
Dead bar-headed geese were first spotted by local herdsmen in a wetland in Yushu County on April 23 and veterinarians, who rushed to the site, found 17 dead geese.
The samples were first sent to the provincial veterinary lab and later to the national bird flu lab for tests, whose results Wednesday confirmed it was the highly contagious H5N1 strain of bird flu.
The epidemic area is 800 kilometres (497 miles) from the provincial capital Xining. There are no residents or domestic fowl in the epidemic area, which is very high and cold, the ministry said.
The area has been put under close surveillance and disinfection measures taken. As a precaution, cattle and sheep in nearby areas have also been moved to pastures other remote parts of the country.
Sources used in this Avian influenza story:
agri.gov.cn (Chinese Ministry of Agriculture, machine translated into English)
Voanews.com