For more than half a year, Shenzhen has been keeping a close eye
on the bird flu situation. But with the confirmation of a man's
death due to bird flu in Guangzhou on Sunday, the city joins other
major Chinese areas in furthering its prevention and control of the
virus.
Chen Shaohua, general secretary of Shenzhen Catering Service
Association, said more than 200 catering enterprises in the city
have committed to only selling poultry products that are completely
boiled. His association has already banned all the catering
enterprises in the city from selling domestic fowl and poultry that
died of sickness or unidentified reasons.
Markets in Shenzhen have also taken overall preventive measures.
They are now following all health formalities and vow to strictly
follow the requirements.
"Beginning from today, we are not allowed to slaughter
chickens," said one vendor at a stand for slaughtering at a
supermarket in Jingtian, Futian District. He said there used to be
six stands selling live fowls, and two usually did the
slaughtering. On some days, more than 100 chickens were
slaughtered. But during the past few days, only about 30 chickens
were killed.
A staff member at the market said that upon receiving the notice
on Thursday, the market banned slaughtering. Chicken now must be
taken to an enclosed slaughter yard instead.
Other cities are also getting on board to prevent the spread of
bird flu.
Some live poultry traders in wet markets in six cities in
Guangdong Province were forced to suspend their businesses on
Wednesday for an unspecified period in a latest attempt to prevent
the fatal bird flu.
On Wednesday, the Industrial and Commercial Administration of
Guangdong Province banned on-the-spot poultry slaughtering in both
the province's wet markets and supermarkets effective immediately,
with a grace period of two days.
The six cities are Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, Dongguan,
Zhongshan and Zhuhai.
The administration also pledged to vaccinate and quarantine all
poultry in the province to prevent new bird flu outbreaks.
Some traders in Guangzhou, however, continued to slaughter live
chickens at their booths yesterday.
"The government told me the ban will take effect in this market
tomorrow. I will close my booth and suspend my business for some
time," a female chicken trader who identified herself as Lin said
yesterday.
"I am feeding 30 live chickens at my booth. I am now trying hard
to sell as many as possible," she said, adding she was already
experiencing an 80 percent drop in sales.
As a dietetic tradition, Guangdong people prefer to buy live
poultry at markets and ask traders to slaughter the poultries for
them on the spot, so they are the most tender. However, experts say
this is a high-risk activity for transmitting the bird flu
virus.
Guangzhou Municipal Industrial and Commercial Bureau has tried
to come up with a solution for the chicken traders.
The bureau has rebuilt most markets in Guangzhou in the past two
years, setting up separate rooms for poultry slaughtering.
"We will allow the traders to slaughter chickens in the separate
rooms to ensure the process of slaughtering is clean and safe," Ye
Huaxin, an officer of the bureau, told China Daily
yesterday. The scheme has been approved by the provincial
administration.
"As for the markets without separate rooms, we will work out
suitable solution in the near future," he said
In Wuxi, East China's Jiangsu Province, vendors of domestic
fowls are required to make a public notice, disclosing where the
chicken comes from, the quarantine situation, the date of notice
and telephone number for complaints.
In Changsha, capital of Central China's Hunan Province, the
municipal industrial and commercial administration has launched a
"Red Shield Storm" program to strengthen market supervision and
strictly prevent livestock and poultry products without quarantine
from entering the market.
(China Daily March 11, 2006)