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BEIJING, Mon. --- There have been 21 outbreaks of bird flu in China this year, a government official said today as he warned the H5N1 situation in the country was “severe” and likely to get worse. The outbreaks in nine different provinces caused the deaths of 144,624 birds, while a further 21.1 million have been culled, Vice-Agriculture Minister Yin Chengjie said. “Although some cases in affected areas have been controlled effectively, the whole situation of avian flu control is still severe”, he said. China had previously announced at least 19 outbreaks this year, including 17 since mid-October. |
Yin warned the crisis was far from over, as the temperatures dropped across the nation throughout winter. “The colder the weather is, the higher the risk of epidemics breaking out”, he aid. Controlling the outbreaks is also getting more difficult as avian flu becomes more virulent, he said. “The virulence of bird flu not only leads to the deaths of chickens but can also affect water fowl such as ducks and geese”, he said, adding that there was an “increasing virulence of avian influenza”. Meanwhile, Romania has confirmed new cases of the deadly strain of bird flu in four hens in a remote village, the agriculture minister said. |
Tests from a British laboratory confirmed the hens have the H5N1 strain, Gheorghe Flutur said. The birds were from the village of Caraorman, a small community surrounded by channels of the Danube river. “We are keeping things under control”, Flutur said in an interview with news channel Realitatea TV. He said a cull of 2,000 birds in the village would get under way today. --- AFP.
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