No outbreak of bird flu has been reported among migratory birds since last autumn, said a Chinese forestry official yesterday in Beijing.
"We have received sporadic reports of dead wild birds, but no report of bird flu outbreak among migratory birds across the country since last fall," said Zhuo Rongsheng, a wildlife and plants protection official with the State Forestry Administration.
China has stepped up measures to combat bird flu after confirming 14 human cases of bird flu, including two newly reported human infections. Eight patients have died in China.
Zhou told a press conference that from March 2005, China has set up 150 state-level and 402 provincial stations for monitoring wild animal epidemic diseases.
These cover most of the areas where migrating birds may stay, he said.
The breeding places of migratory birds in China are mainly in northeast China's Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces, the wetlands along the Yellow River, and the Three-River Headwaters area in Qinghai Province.
Zhuo said that isolation work would be done immediately in case of any unusual death of wild birds. Such deaths also must be reported to local agriculture and veterinary authorities in order to prevent an epidemic.
All local forestry authorities have banned people, livestock and poultry from entering the areas where migratory birds gather, in a an effort to avoid mutual contagion of possible bird flu among migratory birds, livestock and poultry, he said.
China's Agricultural Minister Du Qinglin warned on February 20 that much of northern China faces a serious threat of the disease due to the return of migratory birds from the south in spring. He urged harder work to prevent possible large-scale outbreak.
(Xinhua)