Quarantine lifted in bird flu-hit area of Inner Mongolia
25/10/2006 17:00
The quarantine imposed on an area in north China's Inner Mongolia
Autonomous Region, which was hit by an outbreak of bird flu last month, has been
lifted, local authorities announced today.
A ceremony was held to mark the
lifting of the quarantine in Jiuyuan District of Baotou city on Wednesday
morning.
Experts with the regional headquarters for the prevention of major
animal-related epidemics said that no new outbreak of bird flu had been reported
since the last poultry was culled 21 days ago.
Nearly 1,000 chickens and
ducks were reported to have died suddenly on a poultry farm in Xincheng Village
of Jiuyuan District in Baotou City on September 27. The national avian influenza
laboratory later confirmed that the H5N1 virus was found in samples of the dead
poultry. About 30,000 fowls within three kilometers of the farm were
subsequently slaughtered. No human infections were found.
A total of 42.6
million domestic fowls in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have received
compulsory inoculations.
"The inoculation rate has reached 100 percent in the
autonomous region," said the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region Bird Flu Control
Headquarters Office.
Three million domestic fowls in Baotou had been
inoculated by October 11. Poultry and egg products from the bird flu-stricken
areas were not put on sale.
Two outbreaks of bird flu have been reported last
month, which killed around 2,000 domestic poultry in the Inner Mongolia and
Ningxia Hui autonomous regions.
Xinhua News
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