Bird flu hits central China

cctv.com 01-29-2004 15:20

Chickens at a farm in central China's Hubei Province have also been caught bird fu.

Chen Lianfu's chicken farm has fallen silent. Nearly 80 percent of the 30-year-old farmer's stock of 1,600 chickens died suddenly from the disease - the rest were slaughtered in case they too were infected. It wasn't long before his neighbors' poultry stocks were also affected. The Hubei Animal Disease Diagnosis Center says these birds have bird flu.

Chicken farmer Chen Lianfu said:"1,400 of my chickens became ill and died in 2 days. I immediately reported this to the local authorities. They took blood samples of my chickens and told me that my poultry may have caught bird flu."

In the aftermath, the local government slaughtered all 50,000 farm birds in the 11 villages within a 3-kilometer radius of Chen's farm. Poultry stocks within a five-kilometer radius of the farm were quarantined.

Checkpoints have been set up on all roads leading to the farm to ensure cars or other forms of transport don鈥檛 spread the disease. Disinfectants have also been sprayed over the suspected areas. Hubei quarantine authorities are confident they have contained the outbreak.

Wu Shijun with Hubei Agriculture Bureau said: "The situation has been basically brought under control and there is little chance of further spread right at the moment because the slaughtered fowl are actually healthy ones near the farm."

So far, there are no reports in the area of a person contracting the disease. But there is still the question of how the birds catch the flu. For Chen Lianfu, the value of his lost stock amounts to 5,000 US dollars. The government has pledged to compensate him by paying 15 yuan for every chicken killed and this money is expected to be paid in a week. The local government is still waiting for the final lab results to confirm whether or not the virus is the notorious H5N1 strain of Type A Flu.

Editor:Zheng Guihong  Source:CCTV.com