The newly confirmed bird flu case in Anhui Province is an isolated incident and not a large-scale outbreak, said Zhang Zhongqiu, vice director of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Stockbreeding and Veterinary Bureau. However, that does not rule out the possibility of discovering cases in other locations, he said on Wednesday.

Experts suspect the Anhui infection came from migratory birds.

Located beside Chaohu Lake and on a slope, the chicken farm in the Juchao District where the disease was found is relatively isolated. To date the ministry has not received reports of new cases.

The national bird flu reference laboratory on Tuesday confirmed that the infected chickens had the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus.

On Wednesday, the Ministry of Health issued a circular requiring health departments at all levels to monitor carefully and prevent the flu from infecting humans. The ministry also urged stockbreeding and veterinary departments across the country to spare no effort in preventing an epidemic.

The Anhui provincial government has also issued an urgent circular requiring local governments to deal seriously with regular epidemic control measures, standardize control over poultry raising and carefully sterilize chicken and duck farms.

The circular also said that all local governments should establish an epidemic monitoring system and a related information network. Supervision should focus on poultry farms and areas that previously reported bird flu cases and on those that are at risk.

The provincial government also directed local governments to compensate those who suffer losses from compulsory poultry vaccinations and slaughter.

Beijing and south China’s Guangdong Province have suspended shipments of poultry from Anhui. The Guangdong quarantine authority has urged poultry farms that supply live avian products to Hong Kong and Macao to keep wild birds away.

The Anhui case is the first since China announced it had stamped out the disease on March 16 this year.

Both AFP and Reuters reported yesterday that neighboring country Thailand joined China and Vietnam in reporting fresh outbreaks of bird flu. The Thai government has confirmed the virus as the H5N1 strain.

Vietnam has reported several outbreaks over the past three months.

Bird flu was first detected in China on January 27 at a duck farm in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Another 48 cases were confirmed and nearly 9 million birds were culled before the epidemic was declared over in mid-March.

No humans were infected with the disease in China.

(China Daily July 8, 2004)