In a press release issued Monday, the Ministry of Agriculture said that it had found no pigs infected with the bird flu virus this year.

At the start of this year's bird flu outbreak, the ministry launched a large-scale, nationwide monitoring project, conducting pathogenic and serological checks on more than 1.1 million samples of poultry and some samples of pigs. No pigs infected by the bird flu virus were identified in those tests.

The ministry indicated that it reported the results of those tests to international organizations, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization.

China attaches great importance to the prevention and control of bird flu, said the ministry in its press release.

It also indicated that in a research report published early this year, an expert mentioned that China had found the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in pigs in 2003. Researchers around the world have shown that the bird flu virus can infect mammals as well as poultry.

(Xinhua News Agency August 24, 2004)