No bird flu has broken out in Chinese poultry since late September, but that gives no reason for the country to be optimistic, Vice-Minister of Agriculture Yin Chengjie said yesterday.

"Judging from the global epidemic situation and China's own control efforts, there remain quite a few uncertainties over a possible bird flu outbreak," Yin said yesterday in Beijing.

The deadly strain of avian influenza was recently discovered on an English farm and has killed another woman in Indonesia, though in China the last outbreak was reported on September 20 and eradicated within a month.

However, as spring is the peak season for infections and there are "weak links" in the country's front line against contagion, fighting bird flu remains an uphill battle, the vice-minister said.

The more frequent transfer of domestic birds during the Spring Festival, which starts on Sunday, may increase the risk of the virus spreading, he said.

In addition, the country has long borders, making it possible for bird flu from other countries to invade through ports or border markets, he added.

So in the days to come, the ministry will continue to combine vaccination with culling, while blocking the spread of infections from overseas sources, Yin said.

He said the ministry is building an animal ID and epidemic tracing system partly through requiring livestock raisers to keep records.

Summarizing the result of last year's bird flu control as "better than expected," Yin singled out the outbreaks in the Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province, where efforts were made to prevent infections among wild birds from spreading to either humans or domestic fowl.

As vaccination has been proven to be one of the best options for bird flu control, China gave 10.6 billion shots to its poultry last year, according to ministry statistics.

The country has at least 15 billion domestic birds, or 34 percent of the world's total. Some of the birds are not vaccinated at the request of their importers, but are instead safeguarded by other measures, the country's Chief Veterinary Officer Jia Youling told China Daily yesterday.

Jia, also chief of the ministry's Veterinary Bureau, said the country pooled about 1.7 billion yuan (US$218 million) last year to fight animal epidemics like bird flu and foot-and-mouth disease.

In addition to providing free vaccination and compensation to farmers who culled their flocks to prevent bird flu spreading, the funds were also used to support the development of animal husbandry, he said.

The country has developed methods to detect the deadly strain of bird flu on site half an hour after a suspected outbreak is reported, so that immediate measures can be taken to curb the spread of the infection, Jia said.

It takes one to two days for virus samples to be flown to the national avian influenza reference laboratory in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, for further confirmation he said.

(China Daily February 13, 2007)