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China (Hunan) -
Chickens And Ducks Test
H5 High-Pathogenic
From Patricia Doyle, PhD
dr_p_doyle@hotmail.com
10-25-5
 
Bird Flu Outbreak In China's Hunan Province
By Kim Coghill in Hong Kong and
Judy Hua in Beijing
10-25-5
 
(Reuters) -- China has reported deadly bird flu in chickens and ducks in a village in the central province of Hunan, on the heels of another outbreak in the east of the country, and declared it had been brought under control.
 
China notified the United Nations of the latest outbreak in Xiangtan County -- near the provincial capital, Changsha -- on Tuesday [25 Oct 2005], according to a notice on the Web site of the World Organisation for Animal Health http://www.oie.int
 
(Note - OIE is not a UN agency; it is an independent international organization, established in 1927; its headquarters is located in Paris. - Mod.AS, ProMed Mail)
 
The World Health Organization [WHO] has said the H5N1 strain of bird flu is endemic in poultry in China and across much of Asia, and it could only be a matter of time before it develops the ability to pass easily from human to human.
 
China has reported no human cases so far.
 
An Agriculture Ministry official in Beijing confirmed the Hunan outbreak but gave no details. The notice said that 687 chickens and ducks showed signs of illness, 545 had died, and a total of 2487 birds were culled in the outbreak in Hunan county, also famous in China as Mao Zedong's birthplace.
 
"The outbreak has been effectively controlled," the Agriculture Daily newspaper said, quoting the national bird flu laboratory as saying it had identified the strain as the deadly H5N1.
 
On Tuesday [25 Oct 2005], China reported another outbreak among farm geese in the eastern province of Anhui and said that it too had been brought under control with no reported human infections.
 
China had also notified Hong Kong of the outbreak, the government said. The former British colony, which reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, gets much of its food from the neighboring southern Chinese province of Guangdong, which borders Hunan.
 
Hong Kong does not currently buy any poultry meat or live birds from Hunan but will bar any such imports from the province as a precaution, the government added.
 
"We will monitor the development of the situation in the coming weeks," the government said.
 
There have been other recent outbreaks in far-western Xinjiang, Qinghai and in northern Inner Mongolia.
 
China administrative map:
http://www.fe.doe.gov/images/international/chin-div.gif
 
China's sheer size and its attempts to conceal the emergence of the SARS virus in 2003 have prompted fears among some experts that it has had more bird flu cases than officially recorded.
 
But experts and U.N. officials have said they believe China is better prepared and more open than in 2003.
 
 
ProMED mail
 
[Indeed, China seems to have commendably improved its transparency. The new outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza, sub-type H5, in Hunan has been reported by China's National Chief Veterinary Officer to the OIE in a follow-up report No 5, dated 25 Oct 2005, one day after the previous notification on an outbreak in Anhui. The location of the new focus is the village Wantang in Xiangtan County.
 
See map
http://www.fallingrain.com/world/CH/11/Wantang.html
 
The outbreak involved chickens and ducks; it started on 22 Oct 2005 and was confirmed by the laboratory on 25 Oct 2005. Diagnosis was based upon HI, RT-PCR and IPVI tests carried out by the National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory, Harbin Veterinary Research Institute. Out of 687 susceptible birds, 545 died; 2487 birds have subsequently been destroyed. In response to the outbreak, 43 750 avians have been vaccinated with an inactivated mono H5N2 vaccine. See the full report at
 
http://oie.int/downld/AVIAN%
20INFLUENZA/China%20Follow-up
%20report%20No5.pdf - Mod.AS]
 
Patricia A. Doyle, PhD
Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message board.
 
Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
Go with God and in Good Health
 

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