BEIJING, Nov 10: China has discovered two new outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in poultry in the northeast, bringing the total number of outbreaks to six since the beginning of last month, Chinese media said on Thursday.
Premier Wen Jiabao warned this week that the country was facing a ‘very serious situation’ as the disease had not been brought under control and was likely to spread.
“It certainly is a significant outbreak,” said World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman Roy Wadia in Beijing. “It seems that they are extremely concerned about it.”
Xinhua news agency said the new outbreaks occurred in villages near the cities of Fuxin and Jinzhou, both of which are close to Heishan in Liaoning province, where last week’s outbreak was reported.
About 1,100 chickens died in the latest two outbreaks and the National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory confirmed on Wednesday that the virus was H5N1, the official China Daily said.
The WHO has sent a joint letter with the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization to Chinese authorities, seeking more details on the Liaoning cases.
“We have done everything in line with the requirements and standards of the central government,” an official at the Liaoning Animal Supervision and Management Bureau told Reuters, declining to give details.
In eastern Shandong — the source of half of China’s poultry exports — 200 million birds, or a fifth of the province’s total, had been vaccinated and the rest were expected to be vaccinated by the middle of this month, Xinhua said.
China has yet to report a human case of bird flu, which has killed over 60 people in Asia since 2003, though the WHO is helping probe a possible human case in Hunan province, which had an outbreak in October.
A WHO team looking into the Hunan case is expected to arrive early next week, Wadia said, adding he did not know when they might get the first test results.
KUWAIT: Kuwait has found two cases of bird flu, the first in the Gulf Arab region, and has culled the diseased birds, an official said on Thursday.
It was not immediately clear if the birds had the H5N1 strain of the virus, which can be lethal for humans.
“The expertise of our authorities has prevented two incidents (of bird flu) in Kuwait,” Sheikh Fahd Al-Salem Al Sabah, head of the public authority for agricultural affairs (PAAAFR), said.
A source at the authority said the birds came from outside Kuwait and had been culled.
Sheikh Fahd told reporters: “The problem was dealt with immediately and it was not allowed to spread.”—Reuters
