Hubei Province, which has the highest number of confirmed bird flu cases of any place in China, has been the first to reform and improve the outdated "public health system" for livestock and poultry.

"Just as the SARS epidemic pushed the Chinese governments at all levels to work to improve the public health service system, so too the bird flu is telling us that efforts must be made immediately to improve public veterinary health services," said Mei Zuen, vice-director of the Hubei Provincial Bureau of Agriculture.

In fact, the people of China are generally unaware of the existence of public veterinary health services, and the idea of disease prevention among animals has been largely ignored in many places.

Previously, public veterinary health services were provided mostly in the form of medical treatment for domestic animals once they become ill rather than disease prevention in a systematic way.

Such a system, obviously, is neither suitable nor capable of effectively preventing infectious diseases, especially acute ones like avian influenza, said Mei who is also the spokesman for Hubei's bird flu control headquarters.

Without such an established public veterinary health system, the province has to handle many unexpected problems without proper warning. For example, the publication of guidelines for bird flu prevention, control and surveillance was undertaken only after the province had reported the epidemic, Mei added.

Moreover, prevention service is usually much more important than veterinary treatment for poultry and livestock, Mei said. "For example, we generally would not choose to treat sick poultry, as such treatment may cost much more than the value of poultry being so treated."

That is to say, disease prevention services, which can be done at a much lower cost, are crucial in preventing infectious diseases.

"So we decided to reform the veterinary system, separating public veterinary health services from public medical services," Mei told China Daily last Thursday in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province.

The Hubei provincial government plans to set up a public veterinary health service system, which is already being tried in dozens of counties of the province, Mei noted.

Special infectious disease prevention teams will be set up in these counties. They will be totally supported and financed by government, and will provide free veterinary healthcare services to farmers.

The services will include vaccinations against infectious diseases, helping farmers with disinfection and providing up-to-date information on infectious disease prevention and control.

At the same time, veterinary services, which were managed by government in the past, will be opened up to private investment.

This experiment is quite new in China, according to Mei, who said: "I have no idea whether it will be successful, or whether it can be extended to the whole province or even nationwide."

One of the most important obstacles in establishing such a system is the lack of funds, Mei said. The extra people and the new veterinary service will add new financial burdens to many local governments whose limited finances make it difficult to support even public health services for human beings, Mei added.

Of course, Mei noted, if the central government approves such experiments and determines to set up and improve the system nationwide, as it did for human health care following the SARS epidemic, the prospects for public veterinary health services may become quite rosy, Mei said.

In addition, breeding methods in the poultry industry must be reformed and improved, especially in rural areas, Shi Jiming, vice-director of the Wuhan Agriculture Bureau, told China Daily.

At present, of the 250 million poultry in Hubei, only a few more than 94 million are bred in standardized breeding factories or farms.

The rest of them are bred by farmers themselves, maybe only several per household, which makes it very difficulty for the government to carry out disinfections and other preventative measures.

Poultry industry crippled

So far, suspected bird flu cases have been confirmed in nine counties of Hubei -- Wuxue, Ezhou, Xiangfan, Yichang, Macheng, Yangxin, Gong'an, Honghu, and Songzi.

Huangmei County has also reported suspected cases, Mei revealed at a press release conference last week.

A total of 27,711 poultry have been infected with the deadly virus in these areas and more than 9,000 birds have been killed directly by the virus.

According to a directive from the State Council, more than 630,000 poultry living in areas within 3 kilometres of the places where the disease has been identified have been killed.

The epidemic has also greatly affected the poultry industry of the province. For example, in Wuhan, the sales volume of poultry products of the four wholesale supermarket has decreased from 30,000 kilograms a day to about 3,600 kilograms.

The province has also closed 133 poultry markets and vaccinated 22.47 million birds. "It is a disaster for the poultry industry of Hubei, and it will take time for the province to recover, even given the unrelenting control work and the increasing awareness of residents," Mei said.

However, for many farmers who only breed several chicken and ducks in their houses for their own consumption, the loss is not serious.

"In my village, there is only one big duck breeding farm which has 168 birds, and the income from poultry breeding accounts for less than 5 per cent of the total earnings of a family," said Shi Jiaojie, head of the Shengli Village of Yangxin County, which sees the latest bird flu case of Hubei on January 2.

About 1,000 people of the 2,300 residents of his village have become migrant workers, whose income has become the main money source of their families.

Meanwhile, before the outbreak of the bird flu, the majority of these farmer-turned workers had left their homes after having a Lunar Spring Festival.

Moreover, all his villagers have got compensation money given by governments at higher levels, the village head added.

The provincial government has decided to pay for the destroyed poultry with a higher standard price than that set by the central government.

For example, a total of 15 yuan (US$1.80) will be paid for every chick, higher than the price set by the central government.

The provincial government has asked its local branches to report the exact number of poultry killed and asked them to pay the farmers as soon as possible.

Farmers in the epidemic areas have shown unexpected understanding and have given their support to the preventative actions taken by government, and this has played a very important role in the control work as a whole, he said.

"M family totally had 20 chicken which were killed and paid for by the government. What the government has done is to protect our health. Compared with the health of the 20 members of my family, this is worthwhile," an old woman surnamed Liu from Zhuhe Village of Wuxue City told China Daily.

Measures being taken

The Bureau of Agriculture has also organized a special experts team, which will go to the 10 epidemic areas to investigate the possible sources of the bird flu and try to determine how it managed to spread to so many places in the province, said Mei.

"Where the virus comes from and how it spreads are still unknown to us, so I cannot explain why the virus spread to 10 places although we have done everything possible to prevent its spread," he added.

With reference to the possible transmission of the virus from poultry to human beings, Mei said that thanks to the SARS epidemic, both officials and residents are now paying unprecedented attention to the prevention of infectious diseases.

"I work together with the leaders from the health authority every day and we jointly look after prevention work for both human beings and poultry," Mei said.

In fact, before Mei and his agriculture officials arrived at the first site of bird flu in Wuxue County in late January, local health officials had already arrived there to look after disinfection and quarantine work.

To date, governments at various levels in the province have spent a total of 47 million yuan (US$6 million) in the prevention and control work.

(China Daily February 23, 2004)