The Ministry of Agriculture announced on Tuesday that the bird
flu epidemic in Hotan County of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region had been
controlled.
A report from the Xinjiang Headquarters for Severe Animal
Epidemic Prevention to the ministry said no new cases had occurred
in the past 21 days since the last bird in the infected area was
culled.
Hotan County Government removed its quarantine restrictions on
Sunday after an expert panel was sent to check and evaluate local
epidemic prevention work.
The expert panel agreed that the quarantine and disinfection
work were in accordance with national regulations, and confirmed
that no more poultry had been identified with the H5N1 virus and no
human cases had been found.
The ministry required the local government to tighten its
monitoring of animal epidemics, and to raise public awareness of
bird flu and epidemic prevention.
After domestic poultry at a local farm were confirmed to have
the H5N1 virus on June 7, more than 17,100 birds were culled.
(Xinhua News Agency July 5, 2006)
