Quarantine was lifted from a bird flu-hit city in north China's Shanxi Province yesterday after a 21-day isolation and monitoring period, local health authorities announced.
China has reported five cases of bird flu in humans, including two deaths.
With the ending of the quarantine in the city of Xiaoyi, all animal disinfection stations at municipal, township and village levels were removed.
Local poultry product markets were reopened yesterday after the three-week shutdown, said Han Guangyong, deputy head of Taiyuan's bird flu prevention and control center.
However, all poultry farms within the former quarantined area will not be qualified for fowl raising until they undergo a six-month sanitation test, according to the local epidemic prevention authority.
More than 8,000 chickens raised in Gaoyang Town of Xiaoyi died by November 10. The cause was diagnosed by the national bird flu lab as the bird flu virus a week later.
No new cases were reported during the quarantine period before the Ministry of Agriculture officially lifted the quarantine on Thursday.
Meanwhile, China has successfully treated the fifth person who contracted bird flu, a woman from northeast China's Liaoning Province.
On Thursday the Ministry of Health declared the 31-yeaar-old chicken farmer to be infected with the disease.
"Initial tests during my hospitalization did not suggest I got bird flu, but the latest tests did," said the woman, surnamed Liu.
The patient's condition made the case special and her blood test turned positive only 28 days after she fell sick, said Zhao Zhuo, director of the Liaoning Provincial Disease Control and Prevention Center.
(Xinhua)