Bird Flu in China
There’s a reason China plans to inoculate over 5 billion chickens. The Chinese Ministry of Health says two people have died of avian flu in Hunan Province and one in Anhui Province. These are the first confirmed avian flu deaths in China.
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Dr. Qi and Roy Wadia, a World Health Organization spokesman here, said on Tuesday there had been no sign yet of human-to-human transmission of bird flu, a critical ability the virus needs to develop if it is ever to cause a human pandemic.
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At any one time, China has about 4 billion chickens and 1.2 billion ducks and geese, but even those numbers understate the size of the vaccination task. The country consumes about 14 billion domestically grown chickens, ducks and geese every year.
Dr. Qi said that three-fifths of the poultry in China was kept by families, who let the birds and other domesticated animals wander around the neighborhood and the yard and often through the house. Constant close contact between animals and people is worrisome because birds and pigs can carry the H5N1 bird flu virus and may transmit it to people.
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China reported 50 outbreaks of bird flu in 16 provinces last year, and has reported 11 more to international health agencies this autumn, including 2 more small outbreaks reported on Tuesday. Poultry infections have been especially severe this autumn in Liaoning Province.
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In the last month, Europe has experienced its first outbreaks – in Turkey, Romania and Croatia.