South China's Guangzhou City on Tuesday removed the quarantine order on a village where an outbreak of a bird flu killed 9,830 ducks in early September.

The city authorities announced, after a final check on Monday, that no more poultry cases had been reported since a cull of poultry 21 days ago in Sixian Village, Xinzao Township of Panyu district, and no human cases of bird flu found.

The Ministry of Agriculture confirmed the outbreak as a sub-type of the H5N1 bird flu strain on Sep. 17. It started with the mass deaths of ducks in the village on Sep. 5. 

Local authorities ordered the village to be quarantined, culling an additional 153,320 domestic fowl to prevent the spread of the disease, disinfecting all contaminated areas and closing 68 poultry and related products markets within a radius of 13 kilometers.

The district government reopened the markets on Tuesday.

Animal-related diseases, such as bird flu, were frequently reported during autumn and winter, increasing the need for controls, said Zhou Caixin, vice head of Guangzhou Agriculture Bureau.

The last previous reported case of H5N1 bird flu in China occurred in May in central China's Hunan Province, where more than 11,000 birds died of the disease and 52,800 were culled.

As the world's largest producer of poultry, livestock and aquatic products, China has suffered huge economic losses from outbreaks of animal diseases. It is estimated that animal diseases cost China 40 billion yuan (US$ 5.3 billion) annually.

(Xinhua News Agency October 10, 2007)