Chinese Vice Minister of Agriculture Liu Jian said Thursday, February 5th that the Chinese government hadestablished sound communication with United Nations agencies and between government departments and health authorities to contain the bird flu outbreak.

"Once a case is found, we report it to the Ministry of Health. We also demand the local animal and agricultural departments report to local health departments immediately," Liu said.

"We have tight cooperation with the Ministry of Health to safely handle procedures in infected areas to curb the spread of the disease," Liu said.

Liu said that once the first case in China was confirmed on Jan.27, the government reported it to representatives of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in China, and since then, China had reported to the FAO and WHO three more times.

"After consulting with the representatives of the FAO, China has established a regular reporting system," Liu said.

Vice Minister of Health Wang Longde said the general offices ofhis ministry and the Ministry of Agriculture had issued documents demanding tighter coordination between health and agriculture departments at all levels, and cooperation between human resourcesand material resources to control the disease.

"All poultry within 3 kilometers of the infected sites have been killed and all poultry within 5 kilometers have been compulsorily vaccinated," Liu said.

"All poultry markets within 10 kilometers of infected sites have be closed."

Liu and Wang said communication had been established between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Health. Both ministries had cooperated well when fighting SARS last spring.

(Information source: Xinhuanet)
2004/2/6