East China's Anhui Province has started an emergency mechanism for bird flu control and prevention shortly after a new case of avian influenza confirmed Tuesday by China's Ministry of Agriculture.

A chicken death was confirmed to be caused by H5N1, a highly pathogenic bird flu virus, at a poultry farm of the Juchao District, the Chaohu City of the province. It was the first case after an earlier outbreak between January and March, 2004.

The area around the chicken farm has been isolated by the local government following the death report in accordance with China's Law on Animal Epidemic Prevention.

Experts with the ministry estimated that the virus might be spread by migrants or wild water birds.

According to the provincial headquarters in charge of bird flu control and prevention Wednesday, countermeasures against the epidemic started with the immediate effect upon report received on the new case.

The headquarters were designed to take charge of the coordination of related departments and governments at all levels and dispatches officials to supervise the efforts to prevent the disease from spreading, especially to human beings. To ensure the implementation of the measures, the headquarters have resumed a round-the-clock monitoring system.

The provincial government has issued an urgent circular to demand local governments and related departments to deal seriously with regular epidemic control measures, standardize control over poultry raising and strictly sterilize fowl farms.

The circular also said that an epidemic monitoring system and a related information network should be established by local governments at all levels. Supervision should focus on poultry farms and areas that had reported bird flu cases before and on those that were in danger.

According to the circular, the local governments should pay compensations to those who suffer losses from the compulsory poultry vaccination and slaughter. Meanwhile, a responsibility system should be formed for related officials in the fight against the animal epidemic, the circular added.

Earlier report said that the local health authority has ordered the killing of all the poultry within a 3 km radius of the chicken farm and vaccinated all the poultry within a 5 km radius of the affected area.

China's Ministry of Agriculture has informed the bird flu case to the Beijing Office of United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, World Health Organization (WHO), and relevant authorities of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

The ministry confirmed the first bird flu case caused by H5N1 on January 27, 2004 at a duck farm in the Dingdang Township, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The animal epidemic then spread to several provinces and autonomous regions.

On March 16, the authority lifted quarantine on the last two affected areas in Lhasa of Tibet and Nanning, Guangxi's capital city.

During that period of time, altogether 49 cases of bird flu were confirmed and controlled. So far, no human contraction was reported in China.
 
(Xinhua News Agency July 7, 2004)