China: The fourth bird flu outbreak

On November 3, the Chinese government announced that it had discovered a new outbreak of bird flu, the fourth outbreak in more than two weeks. Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan asked governments to implement an action plan to fight bird flu immediately.

The announcement of China's Ministry of Agriculture said the outbreak was discovered in Liaoning province. Analysis samples confirmed that 20 evil birds and many other wild birds died of avian influenza H5N1 strain. According to local statistics, the virus killed 8,940 chickens and 369,000 birds were killed on a farm in Badahao village, near Zinzhou city, 400 km northeast of Beijing.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan

Immediately after discovering the new outbreak, nearly 37,000 poultry in the affected area were killed. The outbreak area was isolated and local authorities ordered 13.9 million poultry vaccinations in Liaoning. Other detected outbreaks in Inner Mongolia, Anhui and Hunan provinces. China has stepped up control measures in many poultry farms and vaccinated millions of poultry in provinces as well as issued a ban on the import of poultry and poultry products from 14 countries.

In another development, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan asked heads of states to implement an immediate action plan in the prevention of possible bird flu in humans.

Mr. Annan said that countries need to have world-wide agreements on a range of priority measures, including the storage of antiviral drugs sufficient for cases of outbreaks.

He also mentioned a prospect of millions of deaths, paralyzed health systems, devastated communities and faded economies when the pandemic of bird flu hit the world. According to him, a single organization or just a group of countries will not be able to resist the epidemic but need a cooperation of the countries of the world.

According to Mr. Annan, among the priority prevention work is the investment in water control systems from upstream, especially in poultry farms and an appropriate financial compensation for farms. .

GERMANY SCHOOL (According to AP, AFP)