Ji Mi and Winny Wang/Shanghai Daily news
The Ministry of Agriculture yesterday confirmed a ninth outbreak of bird flu
in the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Health Minister Gao
Qiang yesterday rebutted unconfirmed reports of human cases and said China would
never cover up cases.
The country has reported three human cases and two
deaths.
Gao said the low level of competency in some rural hospitals might
make it difficult to accurately diagnose cases of bird flu.
About 300 poultry
died at a village farm in Xinyuan County last Thursday, and the regional
veterinary authority confirmed a suspected case of H5N1 on Sunday, the ministry
reported on its Website late yesterday.
The state bird flu lab confirmed
outbreak of bird flu in the village yesterday.
China, which has the world's
largest number of chickens, has called bird flu a serious bird epidemic.
The
government has reported outbreaks in 11 provinces this year.
Xinjiang
medical authorities have slaughtered more than 118,000 poultry within a
3-kilometer radius of the village farm, the ministry said.
The health
minister rebutted rumors of human cases outside Anhui and Hunan provinces.
A
Website report said 70 human cases of bird flu have been discovered in
northeastern China's Liaoning Province and one in Beijing. It also said 14 of
the 70 Liaoning cases died, listing the identities of the reported
deceased.
Gao told a press conference in Beijing the report was pure rumor.
He said Liaoning police had investigated nine people listed in the report: seven
were never registered in Liaoning, one was doing migrant work in Jiangsu
Province, and the ninth was living in Chongqing, in southwestern China.
The
online report also said a 35-year-old pigeon keeper in Beijing was diagnosed
with bird flu last Thursday and died at a Beijing hospital on Sunday.
But the
minister said no such person died at the hospital.