China's Ministry of Agriculture announced Friday that the quarantine on four areas hit by the H5N1 strain of bird flu were lifted.

The areas are Gong'an County, Songzi City, Yangxin County and Yichang City's Wujiagang district, in central China's Hubei Province.

No new bird flu cases had been suspected or confirmed in these areas for 21 successive days since the last birds in the affected areas were culled.

Experts in animal epidemics and officials concluded after inspections that the disease had been eradicated in the four places and the areas met the requirements for the lifting of isolation orders as stipulated in the Emergency Countermeasures Against Avian Influenza and the Technical Standards Regarding the Fight Against Avian Influenza.

The Ministry of Agriculture urged local governments and animal epidemic prevention and control organizations to continue supervision to prevent new case.

The ministry said it had received no reports of new suspected or confirmed cases Friday. There has been no report of suspected bird flu cases anywhere in the country for 11 days in a row since Feb. 17.

(Xinhua News Agency February 27, 2003)