A new outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu was reported yesterday in a village near Huainan City in eastern China's Anhui Province.
Meanwhile, Chinese scientists said they've developed human vaccines for use in a possible bird flu pandemic and will carry out clinical tests in a few days.
Eight hundred birds were found dead in Fanwei Village on November 6, and the cause of death was confirmed yesterday by the national bird flu lab.
Anhui was the site of an earlier outbreak of the H5N1 virus, which was found recently in Hunan, Liaoning and Hubei provinces and in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
The Ministry of Agriculture sent teams of experts into the province to direct quarantines, vaccinations and flock culls.
Some 126,185 birds have been slaughtered within 3 kilometers of the outbreak site.
On the research front, Chinese scientists said they've developed a bird flu vaccine and standardized procedures for testing for the virus.
Principal researcher Yin Weidong said yesterday laboratory tests have shown the vaccines to be safe and effective on mice.
The team has submitted the samples to the State Food and Drug Administration for approval to begin clinical tests on humans in late November.
China has already prepared for the mass production of its bird flu vaccine for humans. High-risk groups, such as poultry workers and medical personnel in bird flu outbreak areas will be given the drug as soon as it passes safety tests.
In August, scientists in the United States said clinical tests were under way of their H5N1 bird flu vaccine for humans.
European influenza experts said last month that they developed the first human vaccine for the H7N1 bird flu virus strain.
Also yesterday, China's Ministry of Agriculture reported that the country now produces more than 100 million doses daily of vaccines for use among bird flocks.
China has the capacity to produce 16 billion doses of these antiflu drugs a year, which should be enough to meet national demand, it said.
The ministry said it will help accelerate production of the vaccine. After using new technology, the production cycle has been shortened to 34 days from previous 44 days.
Also yesterday, a group of experts from the Chinese Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization arrived in Changsha, capital of Hunan Province in central China, to probe three cases of "pneumonia of an unknown cause." The bird flu virus has not been ruled out in those cases.