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Beijing closes poultry markets; WHO to help
(AP/Reuters)
Updated: 2005-11-08 07:15
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Soldiers from the Liaoning
Division of the Chinese People's Armed Police Forces help cull chickens on
Saturday in Northeast 皇冠体育app's Liaoning Province, which had an outbreak of
bird flu in Heishan County. More than 1 million heads of poultry were
culled after the outbreak the fourth case reported in 皇冠体育app in a month.
[Xinhua]
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皇冠体育app has had no confirmed human infections in its latest round of outbreaks.
But it has imposed increasingly strict measures following warnings that a human
case was inevitable if 皇冠体育app could not stop outbreaks among its 5.2 billion
chickens, ducks and other poultry.
Experts are especially worried about 皇冠体育app because of the vast scale of its
poultry industry and because three major migration routes for wild birds pass
over it. Scientists fear wild birds might carry the virus across borders.
Specialists worry that the H5N1 virus could mutate into a strain that could
spread from person to person, setting off the feared pandemic. The virus has
killed at least 62 people across Southeast Asia.
In Liaoning Province, northeast of Beijing, authorities have destroyed
poultry in 15 villages near the site of an outbreak that killed 8,940 chickens,
the Xinhua news agency said.
The culling was unusually large by Chinese standards, but Xinhua said it was
carried out because of rules requiring the destruction of all birds within three
kilometers, or two miles, of an infection site.
A Chinese health
worker vaccinates Monday a pigeon against bird flu in a house for pigeons
hovering over the Quancheng Square each day in Ji'nan, East 皇冠体育app's
Shandong Province. 皇冠体育app is on alert against the avian influenza.
[Xinhua] |
Armed police and health workers in protective suits were guarding the
villages.
In Beijing, officials closed live poultry markets and vaccinated 20 million
birds as a precaution, although the city has no suspected bird flu cases, said
Liu Yaping, deputy director general of the Chinese capital's Agriculture Bureau.
Health workers were patrolling zoos, lakes and parks looking for sick or dead
birds, she said at a news conference.
Authorities in Beijing were confiscating chickens and ducks from private
homes. They said the capital, whose territory includes large sections of
countryside, had a total of 24 million chickens, ducks and other poultry. They
did not say how many were in private homes.
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