Experts from the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) said in Kunming Friday that China is
able to contain the bird flu outbreak, since the measures taken by
local governments following the outbreak were "timely and
appropriate."
Xu Ji, assistant FAO representative to China, made this remark
to local officials after he and Laurence Gleeson, another FAO
expert, completed a four-day inspection in southwest China's Yunnan
Province and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
"I am greatly impressed by the timely and standard measures
taken by the Guangxi and Yunnan governments," said Xu. "Various
departments in Guangxi and Yunnan cooperated in their concerted
efforts to handle the bird flu outbreak."
He added, "And the compensation measures taken by local
governments have won support and understanding from local farmers.
This is very important in the efforts to prevent the epidemic
spreading."
The FAO experts toured Chenggong County Friday morning, and
visited the Yunnan Tropical and Subtropical Animal Virus Diseases
Laboratory. About 145,000 fowls were slaughtered in Chenggong after
it reported cases of bird flu Feb. 4.
Gleeson, an FAO consultant and senior animal diseases expert,
said local governments had taken quick measures to kill all the
poultry within a 3-km radius of each site infected with bird
flu.
Such measures were very important for keeping the H5N1 virus
from being transmitted to more poultry and birds, and that was what
the FAO recommended, said Gleeson.
"The emergency measures the government is taking will help
people regain their confidence in eating chickens, and restore the
business of the poultry-raising industry," he said, adding that he
hoped that local governments would continue their monitoring and
supervision of the areas infected with bird flu, with special focus
on birds and people entering and leaving those areas.
The two experts learned in detail about the technical training
and sample test procedures in the animal virus disease lab after
they investigated the culling and vaccinating of local poultry, and
related compensation work.
"They have accomplished a lot in the diagnosis of the disease,"
said Gleeson.
"The procedure of their assessment and the equipment they used
met the international standards," he said. "The technologies they
used are also internationally published."
This is the first time for the FAO to send experts to bird
flu-affected areas in China since the first case of highly
pathogenic avian influenza was reported in Guangxi on Jan. 27.
To date, confirmed or suspected cases of the deadly H5N1 strain
of bird flu have been reported in 16 provinces, municipalities and
autonomous regions on the Chinese mainland, but with no new
suspected cases reported over the past four days, according to the
Ministry of Agriculture.
(Xinhua News Agency February 21, 2004)