Guest Guest Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 China fears pandemic China fears flu pandemic By JOE McDONALD 27feb06 CHINA'S agriculture minister yesterday warned of a possible "massive bird flu outbreak" as the country announced two new human cases of the H5N1 flu strain, raising to 14 the number of human infections reports since October. The official Xinhau News Agency quoted Agriculture Ministry Du Qinglin as saying: "In view of the current situation, the possibility of a massive bird flu outbreak could not be ruled out." He called for agriculture authorities to be on "high alert" and to step up disease monitoring and vaccination efforts. Outbreaks in poultry occurred last year in 32 areas throughout China, killing 163,100 chickens, ducks and other fowl, and authorities destroyed 22.6 million more birds to keep the virus from spreading, Mr Du said. The latest human cases are a nine-year-old girl and a 26-year-old woman, both critically ill in hospital with fever and pneumonia, the Health Ministry reported. The girl lives in the southeastern coastal province of Zhejiang and the woman is a farmer from Anhui province in the east, the Ministry said in a report carried by Xinhua. China has reported eight deaths among its 14 human cases. Chinese farmers raised about 15 billion poultry - 21 per cent of the world's total - in 2005. Raising poultry is one of the main income sources for the country's farmers. China has about 5.2 billion poultry at any one time. Meanwhile, in Paris yesterday, President Jacques Chirac urged French people not to panic after the discovery of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu at a farm in the east of the country where thousands of turkeys had died. It was the first case of the virus in domestic farm birds in the European Union and threatened to deal a severe blow to France's struggling poultry industry, worth $9.7 billion a year and the biggest in the bloc. Poultry sales in France are already down about 30 per cent and Japan and Hong Kong have suspended all poultry imports from France. In Indonesia, a 27-year-old woman died from bird flu in Jakarta, bringing the country's total number of bird flu fatalities to 20. - AP Link to comment
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