Chinese authorities plan to cull another 10,000 domestic birds in the city of Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong Province, in a further attempt to contain the latest bird flu outbreak.
According to China’s central media agency, Xinhua, at least 36,130 ducks have been culled since a strain of H5N1 bird flu killed 9,830 ducks in the Sixian Village of Panyu District in Guangzhou City. The outbreak was first suspected when the deaths, on five farms, started on 5th September.
Tests on tissue samples at the National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory have since revealed the birds died of the highly pathogenic form of H5N1 bird flu, confirmed officials from China’s Ministry of Agriculture.
The planned cull of 10,000 birds was announced on Monday, by the Panyu district government. This is in addition to the 36,130 ducks that have already been culled in the area.
Compulsory vaccination and disinfection will also be carried out, up to a radius of 5 square kilometres, and all poultry markets inside a 13 kilometre surveillance zone will also be closed.
Six teams of officials have been sent to different parts of Guangzhou to enforce vaccination of all domestic fowl.
Farmers in local villages are also having blood tests and undergoing medical examination.
Local government will be compensating farmers for their losses, said the report in Xinhua.
Ranking first in farm output, where over 300 million farm workers work on mostly small plots of land, China is the world’s largest producer of poultry and other livestock.
The last H5N1 bird flu outbreak in China was in Hunan province, in the central part of the country, in May this year. That outbreak killed more than 11,000 domestic birds and nearly 53,000 had to be culled.
York Chow, Hong Kong’s Health Secretary, said that Hong Kong will be suspending imports of chilled and frozen duck from southern Guangdong province, according to a report by the Press Association. The suspension is planned to last one week.
Up to 10th September, the World Health Organization has received 328 laboratory confirmed reports of human cases of H5N1 worldwide since 2003, including 200 deaths.
Of these China has reported 25 human cases, of which 16 have resulted in death.
The highly pathogenic strain of H5N1 can only pass to humans from infected sick or dead birds. Experts believe it is only a matter of time before a human to human strain emerges and when that does it will lead to a world pandemic with millions of deaths.
There is currently no vaccine for H5N1, although many scientists are working towards developing one. There have been some promising breakthroughs but even if one was discovered today it would be some years before it passed clinical trials and got into mass production.
Click here for China View, Xinhua news website.
Written by: Catharine Paddock