Two more bird flu epidemic areas were freed from restrictions yesterday following the ending of isolation for Dingdang Town, in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, where China's first confirmed bird flu case was reported.

The two areas now free from the designation are the Nanhui District of Shanghai and Yongkang in East China's Zhejiang Province, Jia Youling, spokesman for bird flu control with the Ministry of Agriculture, said. The two areas reported bird flu cases on January 29 and 31, respectively.

The ministry has not received any new reports of new suspected or confirmed bird flu cases in days.

In another development, the State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine has decided to suspend imports of poultry and related products from Canada.

On February 19, the health department in Canada reported a suspected H7 bird flu case at a chicken farm in the western part of the country.

The outbreak in Shanghai was first discovered at a duck farm in Yiyuan Village of Kangqiao Town in the Nanhui District.

After 21 days of supervision and emergency countermeasures, an expert team for bird flu control concluded that the epidemic situation had been "effectively controlled," according to Tang Haidong, vice-magistrate of Nanhui District of Shanghai.

Poultry raising is forbidden in the district for six months and deals for live poultry at local markets are not permitted, he said.

Villagers cheered at the lifting of the quarantine.

Ji Yemin, 72, a volunteer disinfection worker, said with a big smile: "I am very happy that we have gotten back to a normal life. For the safety of villagers, I wanted to do this job... my family strongly supported me."

"I am so glad that nobody in the village was affected with bird flu," said Xu Shengwei, the owner of a duck with bird flu, "I will tell my family in my hometown of Zhejiang at once that we are very safe and let them rest their hearts."

Xu has got the first compensation payment of 39,000 yuan (US$4,698) and more will follow.

According to Wang Zhengquan, director of Kangqiao Town, the first batch of compensation payments is 6 million yuan (US$722,890), and all victims in the village will get funds by the end of this month.

"But we should continue to pay attention to prevent agricultural epidemics and avoid future possible expansions," said Feng Zhongwu, an official with the ministry.

Meanwhile, local media in South China's Guangdong Province reported that the isolation of nine epidemic sites in the province will gradually be lifted starting from this week.

The province experienced the first suspected bird flu cases on January 30 in the Anchao County and the case was confirmed on February 3.

Since then, bird flu cases were reported in nine areas in the province and a total of 258,000 birds were slaughtered. No new cases were reported in the province since February 10, according to local media.

With the situation turning good, more consumers throughout the country have gradually started to eat chicken. Sales of chicken by the Beijing Huadu Chicken Co in recent days have been rising and on Sunday sales climbed to 20 tons, according to the Beijing Morning Post.

Since bird flu was reported in some provinces of China, the sales of chicken have dropped to 2 or 3 tons a day from nearly 100 tons in normal days, according to Zhang Liangshun, deputy general manager of Beijing Huadu Chicken.

(China Daily February 24, 2004)