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China Makes First Bird-Flu Report to Animal Agency in 5 Months
By Jason Gale
March 7 (Bloomberg) -- Bird flu killed chickens in Tibet, China's Ministry of Agriculture said in its first report to the World Organization for Animal Health in five months.
The H5N1 avian influenza strain killed 680 chickens in Tibet's Lhassa district in an outbreak that began March 1, Jia Youling, China's national chief veterinary officer, said in a report yesterday to the Paris-based veterinary agency. The virus killed thousands of wild birds in Tibet last May, Jia said in his previous report to the agency on July 28.
``There are outbreaks that are still recorded as unresolved,'' Jia wrote. ``It is not possible to declare this event resolved until these individual outbreaks are resolved.''
The latest outbreak and a human case of bird flu last month highlight China's struggle to eradicate the H5N1 virus more than a decade after it was discovered in a domestic goose in the southern Guangdong province in 1996. Since then, it has spread to more than 50 countries across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. World health officials say the virus may spark a pandemic if it mutates and begins spreading easily among humans.
Infections in people increase the opportunity for the virus to evolve into a more contagious form. At least 167 of the 277 people known to have been infected since late 2003 have died, the World Health Organization said on March 1. Millions could die if H5N1 becomes as contagious as seasonal flu.
Traced to China
The H5N1 virus that's infected people in a dozen countries during the past four years can be traced to southern China, researchers at the University of California in Irvine found after studying genetic and geographic data. Their study was published March 5 in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers, led by Robert Wallace, reported that variants of the H5N1 virus originated in Guangdong where ``explosive growth'' in intensive poultry production and proximity to wild fowl promoted its diversification and spread.
The researchers analyzed genetic sequences from 192 avian- flu samples collected across Asia and northern Europe to identify mutations that have occurred during the virus's evolution.
The study is ``unscientific'' and ``ridiculous,'' Yu Yedong, head of the Guangdong Animal Epidemic Prevention Institute and chief of the team at the Guangdong Bird Flu Prevention Office, was quoted by the South China Morning Post as saying.
Yu said it was difficult to find out where the H5N1 virus first emerged and also questioned the sources of the samples in the study, according to the newspaper report today. Guangdong hadn't provided samples, and the collection of specimens had to be approved by state authorities.
By Jason Gale
March 7 (Bloomberg) -- Bird flu killed chickens in Tibet, China's Ministry of Agriculture said in its first report to the World Organization for Animal Health in five months.
The H5N1 avian influenza strain killed 680 chickens in Tibet's Lhassa district in an outbreak that began March 1, Jia Youling, China's national chief veterinary officer, said in a report yesterday to the Paris-based veterinary agency. The virus killed thousands of wild birds in Tibet last May, Jia said in his previous report to the agency on July 28.
``There are outbreaks that are still recorded as unresolved,'' Jia wrote. ``It is not possible to declare this event resolved until these individual outbreaks are resolved.''
The latest outbreak and a human case of bird flu last month highlight China's struggle to eradicate the H5N1 virus more than a decade after it was discovered in a domestic goose in the southern Guangdong province in 1996. Since then, it has spread to more than 50 countries across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. World health officials say the virus may spark a pandemic if it mutates and begins spreading easily among humans.
Infections in people increase the opportunity for the virus to evolve into a more contagious form. At least 167 of the 277 people known to have been infected since late 2003 have died, the World Health Organization said on March 1. Millions could die if H5N1 becomes as contagious as seasonal flu.
Traced to China
The H5N1 virus that's infected people in a dozen countries during the past four years can be traced to southern China, researchers at the University of California in Irvine found after studying genetic and geographic data. Their study was published March 5 in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers, led by Robert Wallace, reported that variants of the H5N1 virus originated in Guangdong where ``explosive growth'' in intensive poultry production and proximity to wild fowl promoted its diversification and spread.
The researchers analyzed genetic sequences from 192 avian- flu samples collected across Asia and northern Europe to identify mutations that have occurred during the virus's evolution.
The study is ``unscientific'' and ``ridiculous,'' Yu Yedong, head of the Guangdong Animal Epidemic Prevention Institute and chief of the team at the Guangdong Bird Flu Prevention Office, was quoted by the South China Morning Post as saying.
Yu said it was difficult to find out where the H5N1 virus first emerged and also questioned the sources of the samples in the study, according to the newspaper report today. Guangdong hadn't provided samples, and the collection of specimens had to be approved by state authorities.