Ms. Deng Jingjing, a local government official who had thought of visiting a schoolmate with her five-month-old daughter, changed her mind a couple of days ago.

"I have seen a lot of reports about bird flu on TV," she said, "my daughter is too young, anyway."

The human beings so far have not created any effective vaccine against bird flu, a highly fatal disease that scourges some countries. A total of 118 human-infected cases have been reported since the end of 2003, and 61 infected persons were dead.

The possibility of a pandemic human-to-human bird flu has tensed up the world, and many countries have taken respective actions.

"I have heard of the bird flu epidemic in China, fortunately there is no human-infected case here," Zhou Chao, a staff member of a foreign company in central China's Henan Province said, "I know how to safeguard myself. I can't eat chicken and duck any more, can I?"

Ma Yukun, a local farmer of Zhumadian in Henan Province, seems to be indifferent to bird flu. "We needn't to be scared of that, for it is very common that poultry dies of some sort of diseases," Ma said.

Spokesman of Ministry of Health (MOH) Mao Qunan told the press that there has been no reported human-infected bird flu case in China so far. The government and the media should provide accurate and reliable information rather than rumors to the public in time, said Mao.

Mao said the ratio of human infection is very low, and there is no evidence which can prove bird flu could cause human-to-human infection.

Mao also reminded poultry farmers to take care of their animals and report any abnormal poultry's death or human discomfort to local departments.

Professor Cao Wuchun of Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS) told Xinhua that bird flu could infect human mainly by bird's bodies and the excretion.

Chinese people are used to buying live poultry and then kill them on the spot at street markets. Professor Cao reminded people to pay close attention to the birds sold in the street markets to avoid buying sick and dead birds.

He also suggested that people who deal with sick and dead poultry of bird flu should receive flu vaccine injection, which could effectively obstruct the combination and aberrance of bird and human flu.

Chinese government has monitored the situation of bird flu very carefully and taken actions to prevent bird flu's breakout.

Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu called for the establishment of monitoring and emergency mechanism and responding countermeasures for bird flu at a national epidemic prevention meeting on Oct. 20.

MOH has designed two countermeasures for pandemic human flu and diagnostic plans of human and bird flu since the beginning of this year. MOH has also cooperated with other ministries to monitor bird flu situations.

Learning a lesson from the SARS broke out in 2003, Chinese local governments have been much more cautious of the epidemic diseases. Beijing municipal government have reportedly taken measures to ensure all immune birds sales and will ban live birds sale in street markets. Shanghai local government burned all the poultry and their eggs carried from epidemic regions.

Chiese State Forestry Administration(SFA) also increased surveillance on migratory birds.

(Xinhua News Agency October 25, 2005)