China denies reports over bird flu drug
22/6/2005 8:16
The Ministry of Agriculture yesterday denied reports that the Chinese
government had encouraged farmers to use amantadine, an anti-viral drug for
human use, on poultry to control bird flu.
The Washington Post reported on
Saturday that Chinese farmers, acting with the approval and encouragement of
government officials, have tried to suppress major bird flu outbreaks among
chickens with an anti-viral drug meant for humans, which would possibly make it
ineffective for treating the deadly epidemic in humans. Other Western media
organizations, such as The Associated Press and Agence France Presse, also
carried similar reports.
"Those reports are totally groundless and run
counter to facts," the ministry said in a press release in Beijing.
The
release said that since 2004 when a bird flu outbreak occurred in the country,
the Chinese government has approved three kinds of vaccines.
These vaccines
are very cheap, with the highest price at less than 0.15 yuan (1.9 US cents) per
dosage, and the lowest at 0.07 yuan per dosage.
Currently, China provides
free vaccine dosage for registered poultry breeders, and subsidizes half the
cost for voluntary vaccination for family poultry farms.
"The poultry
breeders don't need to use the anti-viral drug to prevent bird flu in chickens,"
the ministry insisted.
Moreover, the release said that with the vaccination,
chickens could be free from bird flu infection for at least six months, but with
the anti-viral drug, they have to be injected every day.
"The cost of using
the anti-viral drug will be too high for the breeders to take," said the
ministry.
It also said that safe production and management of the vaccines
have contributed to China's successful control of bird flu.
Amantadine is an
anti-viral drug meant for use only in humans in China, said the release, adding
that to prevent intercross drug-resistancy between humans and animals, the
government has never allowed amantadine to be used in the prevention of bird flu
or any other poultry diseases.
"Actually, no human-use anti-viral drugs have
been or would be allowed to be used in the prevention of animal diseases," it
stressed.
The Ministry of Health is also concerned about the report, said a
ministry official yesterday. The official said that the ministry would keep
close contacts with the World Health Organization and other departments over
this issue.
China has reported no bird flu cases in humans, but two bird flu
outbreaks in the country's remote west, in Qinghai Province and the Xinjiang
Uygur Autonomous Region respectively, have killed more than 1,000 birds this
year.
(Xinhua)
Xinhua
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