China's environmental watchdog demanded Tuesday that the country's breeding industry clean the environment of farms, slaughterhouses and marketplaces to help stall the spread of bird flu.

An official document published by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) requires farmers to provide clean drinking water for the poultry, disinfect the air and decontaminate the feces and sewage of poultry on farms, slaughterhouses and marketplaces.

Attached to the feces particles floating in the air or the water, the bird flu virus can cause mass infections and deaths among birds. Through infected birds, the virus may also find its way to humans, who could die after infection.

The document thus forbade building breeding farms near drinking water sources, but it allows them to be built around human settlements, as long as they are downwind and at least 500 meters away.

The bird flu plague has struck more than ten Asian countries since December of 2003, causing tens of millions of poultry to be slaughtered and 12 human deaths, with almost one hundred people suspected of infection.

According to a Chinese Health Ministry spokesman Tuesday, no human infection case has been discovered so far in this country. 

(Xinhua News Agency February 3, 2004)