Publicité
China on alert against bird flu
China ordered strengthened poultry disinfection measures yesterday under a bird flu alert during the wildfowl migration season and as Thailand announced its first probable case of human-to-human transmission.
China had not detected any new cases of bird flu since an outbreak in July in the eastern province of Anhui, an Agriculture Ministry official said yesterday. But the disease posed a risk during the autumn and winter migration season, the ministry said in a notice ahead of the week-long National Day holidays.
Disinfection should be strengthened on farms, at slaughterhouses, markets, in refrigerator warehouses and during transport, it said. The virus, which forced the slaughter of more than 100 million birds across Asia, is proving difficult to wipe out with recent outbreaks in Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Vietnam. The deadly H5N1 virus has killed 20 people in Vietnam and 10 in Thailand this year.
China confirmed in August that two pigs had been found in recent years to have carried H5N1, but said the cases were isolated and the area where they were found was being monitored. The H5N1 strain scared the region from the moment it first sprang up in Hong Kong in 1997, killing six people and forcing the cull of 1.5 million birds. Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Wednesday ordered a campaign to wipe out the bird flu virus by the end of October after the country announced its first probable case of human transmission.
Publicité
Publicité
Les plus récents
