Southwest China's Yunnan
Province, which borders Vietnam, has imposed a series of
emergency measures to prevent recently reported outbreaks of avian
influenza in Vietnam from spreading into China, sources with the
local government said on Saturday.
All major transportation routes, poultry farms, border regions
and places that were hit by the bird flu outbreak early last year
have been urged to vaccinate poultry.
The provincial government has told local agricultural, health,
import and export quarantine, public security, quality inspection
departments and customs officials to work together to monitor the
possible spread of the disease and distribution of poultry and egg
products in Yunnan. Anyone whose dereliction of duty causes the
spread of bird flu will be punished harshly, the sources said.
Meanwhile, the local animal husbandry department has set up a
30-kilometer-wide "immune protection zone" in the border area
neighboring Vietnam and set up disinfection stations at the
frontier passages and border ports. All vehicles and people passing
through are inspected and disinfected.
Testing of wild migrating birds is also set to begin.
A three-tier reporting system involving households, villages and
townships has been set up in rural areas of Yunnan. Any outbreak of
bird flu should be reported to higher authorities within 24
hours.
Yunnan shares a 1,200-kilometer-long border with Vietnam, with
nearly 100 markets for cross-border trade.
On January 6, the World Health Organization indicated on its
website that it had received reports of two new human cases of
infection with avian influenza. Both patients -- children
aged six and nine -- had died. Initial tests identified
the virus as the H5 subtype.
A 16-year-old girl who was identified as being infected with the
deadly H5N1 was reported in late December. She remains hospitalized
in critical condition.
All three cases have occurred in the southern part of the
country, where poultry outbreaks have been recurring since
December.
From January 1 through December 30, 2004, 28 cases of human
bird flu infections were reported in Vietnam. Twenty of them were
fatal.
(Xinhua News Agency January 10, 2005)