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Beijing cranks up bird flu monitoring
11/10/2006 17:01

Beijing has reinstated daily reporting of bird flu monitoring results in a bid to prevent possible outbreaks.

Daily reporting replaced weekly reporting at 86 bird monitoring stations on Tuesday in preparation for the huge number of migratory birds that will fly over the city this autumn.

Over 100,000 migratory birds from Russia, Mongolia and China's northeast will cross the city in October alone, according to the municipal bureau of parks.

The bureau said it has monitored 122,583 migratory birds and found no outbreaks of bird flu.

It urged residents to report immediately if they spot ill or dead birds.

The bureau warned people not to allow domestic poultry and bird pets to mingle with wild birds so as to prevent possible outbreaks.

Beijing bans imports of live poultry and related products from regions hit by the disease and is reinforcing poultry product quarantine procedures at local markets, the Beijing News reported on Wednesday.

"Autumn and winter are critical periods for bird flu outbreaks. Officials should be aware of the dangers and should not underestimate the difficulty of controlling the virus," said Yin Chengjie, vice minister of Agriculture.

In the past fortnight, China reported two new outbreaks of birdflu, which killed about 2,000 domestic poultry, in the autonomous regions of Inner Mongolia and Ningxia Hui.



Xinhua