The government filed a report with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) yesterday saying an outbreak of avian influenza in central China's Hunan Province dating back to Saturday has killed 545 chickens and ducks, prompting authorities to destroy 2,487 others and vaccinate 43,750.

The outbreak, in the village of Wantang in Xiangtan County, was confirmed as involving the H5N1 strain of bird flu by the National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences' Harbin Veterinary Research Institute on Tuesday.

Altogether, 687 birds were reported to have shown symptoms of the disease.

The outbreak was reported to the OIE by Jia Youling, national veterinary officer and director general of the Ministry of Agriculture's Veterinary Bureau, and is the third involving H5N1 to be reported in China this month, though no human cases have been identified.

2,600 infected chickens and ducks were confirmed as having died in Tengjiaying Village in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region last Wednesday in an outbreak that was dated by the ministry to have started on October 14.

Over 90,000 other birds were destroyed in and around the affected area and 166,177 vaccinated, and the ministry told the OIE that the cause of the outbreak was contact with wild birds.

In Liangying Village, Tianchang City in the eastern province of Anhui, 550 deaths amongst chicken and geese were confirmed to have been caused by H5N1 on Monday. The start of the outbreak was dated as October 20, and the ministry said 44,736 other birds were destroyed and 140,000 vaccinated.

The cause of the Anhui outbreak was given to the OIE as unknown or inconclusive, and it went unspecified for the infections in Hunan.

Hong Kong's Health, Welfare and Food Bureau said yesterday that it has suspended imports of poultry and poultry meat from Hunan.

A bureau spokesperson said there were currently no such imports from Hunan but should there be any applications they would be withheld from processing to ensure food safety.

Bird flu has killed more than 60 people, more than two thirds of whom were in Vietnam, and resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of poultry in Asia since 2003. Four other Chinese outbreaks were reported to the OIE this year prior to this month's, and cases amongst birds have also been confirmed in Europe in the past few weeks.

The fourth Indonesian human death from bird flu was confirmed on Monday by the WHO as having taken place at the end of September.

(China Daily October 26, 2005)