Farmers have been hit hard by the impact of bird flu, but the outbreaks may ultimately push the country to improve its poultry-rearing practices, agricultural officials and experts said yesterday.

"Bird flu has adversely affected the poultry-raising sector, but in the long haul, it will also prompt a transformation of the (backward) rearing methods, forcing the industry to develop along a healthy and sustainable track," said Wang Jimin, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Wang said at least 40 per cent of China's poultry is raised in scattered, small courtyard farms in substandard conditions, making them vulnerable to possible contagious diseases.

The bird flu infection will make farmers more aware of the risks in the sector, he said.

Following the epidemic, the Ministry of Agriculture has started to advocate the development of intensive farming and worked to optimize its stock raising method, said Zhang Zhongqiu, vice-director of the ministry's Animal Husbandry Department.

Wang and Zhang made the remarks at an online question-and-answer session yesterday in Beijing.

They said the well-established habit of humans living in close contact with fowls and livestock should be changed to avert possible cross-contagions.

No human-to-human infection has been found to date, Minister of Health Gao Qiang told a press conference in Beijing.

Three human infection cases were reported in Central China's Hunan Province and East China's Anhui Province.

Scientists are working hard in China to monitor changes of the H5N1 virus, he said.

An expert group from the World Health Organization (WHO) is expected to finish its field investigation and laboratory tests on the two human cases in Anhui today.

Meanwhile, Gao rejected rumours that China has many more human cases of bird flu than officially reported.

One website said that a 35-year-old person died of bird flu in China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing on November 27.

In fact, from November 24 to 27, a total of six people died in the hospital, and none was aged 35, Gao said.

30th outbreak reported

China announced that another outbreak of the bird flu had appeared in the westernmost region of Xinjiang, bringing the total number of bird flu epidemics in the country this year to 30.

Some 300 farm raised poultry died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in Biesituobie village in Xinyuan county on November 24, the Ministry of Agriculture reported on its website.

"On November 11, after testing at state bird flu laboratories, it was confirmed that the outbreak was the H5N1 avian flu," the ministry said.

The outbreak was the ninth to have hit Xinjiang this year, making the region one of the hardest hit by the bird flu.

The Xinjiang government has culled some 1.18 million farm raised birds within a three kilometer (1.8 mile) radius of the Biesituobie outbreak, it said.

Scientists warn that continued contact between infected birds and humans may eventually result in the virus mutating into a form that could be easily passed on by humans, sparking a pandemic that could kill millions.

Nine arrested over fake bird flu vaccine

Nine people have been arrested for selling fake bird flu vaccines that are suspected to have contributed to an outbreak of the disease in northeastern China's Liaoning province.

Police have arrested officials of the Jinyu Group, a company based in Inner Mongolia that produces medicines, and of the Inner Mongolian Biological Medical Products Factory, the Liaoxi Commercial Daily reported Wednesday.

After a 20-day investigation covering four provinces and regions, police found the two companies had manufactured and sold 200,000 vials of 12 different kinds of bird flu vaccine nationwide, the report said.

With 29 outbreaks of the disease discovered so far this year, China is seeking to vaccinate its estimated 5.2 billion farm raised birds, but requires manufacturers to have a license to produce the vaccines.

Police said that the Jinyu Corporation failed to apply for a license from the state to manufacture bird flu vaccines for poultry, but labelled its products with fake government licensing numbers, it said.

Investigators found the fake vaccines were used on farms in Liaoning's Jinzhou region, where an outbreak of bird flu occurred in mid-October, the report said.

Some 2.5 million farm raised birds were culled in the Jinzhou region following the outbreak, devastating the livelihood of farmers in the region.

The relationship between the two suspected companies was not immediately clear, but one man arrested, Wang Jiafu, was a vice director of the Jinyu Corporation as well as the legal representative of the Inner Mongolian Biological Medical Products Factory, it said.

The government warned this month that the use of fake vaccines in Liaoning could have disastrous consequences for China.

"The use of fake and shoddy vaccines will result in a disaster," Agriculture Minister Du Qingling said on November 9.

"If the vaccines are not up to standard, then immunization to the virus will not be uniform or effective. This could bring huge losses."

Farms in Liaoning were highly concentrated, Du said, meaning that any problems in vaccinating poultry could result in the epidemic spreading.

"If we miss the chance to exterminate the virus in the early stages, then the difficulty in wiping it out will increase by several times, as will the spread of the epidemic," Du said.

"We must fully recognize that at present there is a possibility that the epidemic will spread and expand. This is not an exaggeration just to scare people."