China reports second bird flu outbreak in a week

[hawkeye]

China reports second bird flu outbreak in a week

BEIJING : A new outbreak of bird flu has killed about 1,000 poultry in northern China in the second such case in a week, state media reported on Wednesday.

Some 72,930 domestic poultry have been slaughtered and the outbreak is now under control, Xinhua news agency said. Laboratory tests had confirmed the H5N1 strain of the virus, which can be deadly to humans, it added.

The outbreak, in Henan New Village in Yinchuan, regional capital of the desert-like Ningxia Hui region, follows a similar occurrence in neighbouring Inner Mongolia.

Beijing banned chicken exports from the Baotou region of Inner Mongolia after H5N1 killed about 1,000 chicken and ducks there.

Xinhua said on Tuesday that the Baotou outbreak, which came to light on September 27, had been brought under control. It was the first incidence reported in China in six weeks.

Twenty-one people in China have contracted bird flu and 14 of them have died, according to official figures. The most recent fatality occurred in July in the western region of Xinjiang.

The latest case in Ningxia Hui brings to 40 the number of bird flu outbreaks among poultry in China since October last year.

China confirmed in August that its first human bird flu victim died in late 2003, two years earlier than previously reported. - AFP/de

[HenryN]

Re: China reports second bird flu outbreak in a week

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[AlaskaDenise]

Re: China reports second bird flu outbreak in a week

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H5N1 Outbreaks in Ningxia Hui and Inner Mongolia
Recombinomics Commentary
October 4, 2006

A new outbreak of bird flu has killed about 1,000 poultry in northern China in the second such case in a week, state media reported on Wednesday.

Some 72,930 domestic poultry have been slaughtered and the outbreak is now under control, Xinhua news agency said. Laboratory tests had confirmed the H5N1 strain of the virus, which can be deadly to humans, it added.

The outbreak, in Henan New Village in Yinchuan, regional capital of the desert-like Ningxia Hui region, follows a similar occurrence in neighbouring Inner Mongolia.

The two H5N1 bird flu outbreaks in northern China is not a suprise. Over the summer there was a massive die-off of waterfowl in Tuva in southern Siberia and northern Mongolia. The Qinghai strain was isolated and the H5N1 was rapidly evolving. The later samples could be distinguished from the earlier sequences, signaling significant recombination.

New sequences create new problems.

[Mingus]

Re: China reports second bird flu outbreak in a week

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Outbreak of Bird Flu in NW China




The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture has striking news.

A new outbreak of bird flu was detected in a village situated NW China. According to the Chinese officials the H5N1 virus has already killed nearly 1,000 domestic birds.

The laboratory test confirmed the fact that the Chinese authorities failed in preventing the outbreak of new bird flue cases.


The Ministry of Agriculture has publicly admitted that more should have been done to prevent the outbreak.
"There still exist weak links in our bird flu fight work," it was confessed on the Ministry of Agriculture's official website.

Unfortunately this is the second outbreak of bird flu to be reported in China in less than ten days. Health experts confirmed the existence of H5N1 virus in China's Inner Mongolia Region at the end of September.

So far the virus caused the death of millions of domestic birds worldwide and obviously the shut-down of numerous chicken farms. The disease regularly affects birds, but since 2003, 148 cases of human victims of the bird flue were reported.

Experts fear that the H5N1 virus might mutate into a form that will permit its spreading among humans.