Surveillance has been stepped up around lakes in northwest China's Qinghai Province following the discovery of a dead wild goose carrying the bird flu virus.

The Ministry of Agriculture said on Sunday that the dead bar-headed goose found in Gangcha County tested positive for the H5N1 strain, the highly contagious strain that has killed 12 people in China.

Qinghai is known as a stopping point for migrating birds and the virus killed thousands of bar-headed geese at a nature reserve in the region in 2005.

Qinghai veterinary departments sterilized the area where the dead bird was found and stepped up the monitoring of migratory birds, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

No bird flu outbreak has been found among domestic fowls after the discovery and no further bird deaths reported.

The ministry urged local authorities to step up their surveillance on areas where large number of migratory birds rest.

"Dozens of teams of people are sent every day to monitor areas where lakes abound," said Sun Yingxiang, an official with the provincial agriculture department.

Even though it is currently the May Day holidays, the hundreds of observers from various departments including health, agriculture and forestry would not be relaxing their surveillance duties, he added.

"We send people to regions that we have access to," he said. "Telescopes will be used in areas out of reach, such as wetlands."

There are eight major migration routes, also called flyways, in the world for different birds. Three of them, the Central Asian-Indian flyway, East Asian-Australian flyway and West Pacific flyway, converge over the Chinese mainland, including Qinghai, before they extend to other places.

The ministry also reported on Sunday an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease among livestock in Qinghai, the second case in the region in two months.

The Asian I strain of the disease was discovered in four dairy cows on a farm in Haiyan County on April 26, the ministry said.

The national foot-and-mouth disease reference laboratory confirmed the outbreak.
The ministry and the provincial government have taken emergency measures to contain the outbreak, disinfected the area and culled sick animals, the statement said.

(China Daily May 2, 2006)