Shanghai is planning to set up a specific law to prevent the spread of animal-sourced diseases - such as bird flu - and to improve supervision of the poultry market, lawmakers said yesterday.
Once approved by the Standing Committee of the Shanghai People's Congress - the city's premier law-making panel - the law would probably authorize the city government to impose heavy punishment on people illegally raising poultry.
"Shanghai will strengthen its management in prevention of animal-sourced diseases to ensure people's health," Gong Xueping, chairman of the committee, told a group of visiting legal inspectors from the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress yesterday.
The local lawmakers are conducting a legal feasibility study on the new law and the final version is expected to come out early next year, officials said.
The local law will very probably better standardize the city's poultry market and provide tough penalties for unlicensed poultry raisers and transporters.
One driver for the legislation is the case of Nanhui District where suspected bird flu was found on January 29.
Although the situation was under control and the city government took emergency measures to slaughter more than 300,000 birds near the infected areas, it sparked the city to seek a better monitoring system at all government levels.
Hu Yanzhao, a vice mayor of the city, said: "The city government will expand the supervision of animal-sourced diseases from rural areas in general to cover all the downtown area."