China’s Agriculture Ministry on Thursday admitted problems in controlling an epidemic of bird flu, as it reported five new cases that took its total to 28 suspected or confirmed outbreaks.
”The way of [poultry] production is diversified, so this has brought some problems for the control of the epidemic,” Vice-Minister of Agriculture Liu Jian said.
”Some parts of our animal disease prevention system are weak and vulnerable, and the public has limited knowledge about the disease and ways to prevent it,” Liu told reporters. ”It remains an arduous task for China to prevent and control the disease.”
A group of experts was already looking at ways to improve epidemic disease prevention and control systems in the poultry industry, Liu told reporters.
”We will improve our previous system based on the defects and loopholes that have been found during the control process,” he said.
State television said the ministry reported one new confirmed outbreak and four suspected outbreaks on Thursday.
The ministry also confirmed as bird flu four outbreaks reported earlier in the eastern province of Anhui, the evening news broadcast said.
The new confirmed case and one suspected outbreak were in the neighbouring province of Jiangxi, the first cases reported in the province.
They took China’s total to one confirmed and 18 suspected bird-flu outbreaks.
Liu and other officials denied that China covered up earlier bird-flu outbreaks, though they did not say if all the outbreaks occurred recently.
China found no transmission to humans from more than 56 000 birds recorded as infected with the virus, the officials said.
Liu said medical staff examined 1 418 people who had contact with infected birds.
”There is no human infection detected,” he said.
Local officials reported 56 417 chickens, ducks and geese infected with bird flu, and 49 236 had died by Wednesday, the ministry said.
Liu was apparently blaming small farmers for the spread of bird flu by highlighting the diversity in China’s poultry industry, which ranges from single coops to huge factory farms.
Bird flu is likely to force many small-scale poultry farmers out of the industry and give large poultry enterprises a bigger share of the market, Sheng Weijie, deputy director of the National Poultry Industry Association, said on Wednesday.
Sheng gave the example of Anhui, where four suspected outbreaks were reported. Many small poultry farms in the affected areas of Anhui have already gone, he said, as farmers dismantled simple sheds made of bamboo and other cheap materials.
”Big poultry raising companies are not seriously affected by this bird flu, for they have been strictly processed according to regulations and standards for immunisation and sanitation,” he said.
Chinese farmers raised several billion birds before the flu outbreaks, with annual output of 13,5-million tons of poultry meat and 24,2-million tons of eggs in 2002, the latest year for which figures are available.
Earlier this week, World Health Organisation (WHO) experts said they had insufficient information to determine any pattern or timescale of the bird-flu outbreaks in China.
The WHO is negotiating with Chinese officials to send at least two joint teams to investigate the possible roles of migratory birds, poor vaccination programmes and weak surveillance in the outbreaks. — Sapa-DPA