The bird flu epidemic in Hotan County of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is under
control the Ministry of Agriculture announced in Beijing on
Tuesday.?
A report from the Xinjiang Headquarters for Severe Animal
Epidemic Prevention to the ministry said no new cases had occurred
in the past 21 days since the last bird in the infected area had
been culled.
Hotan County Government removed its quarantine restrictions on
Sunday after an expert panel checked and evaluated local epidemic
prevention work.
The panel agreed that the quarantine and disinfection work were
in accordance with national regulations and confirmed that no more
poultry had been identified with the H5N1 virus and no human cases
had come to light. ?
The ministry required the local government to tighten its
monitoring of animal epidemics and to raise public awareness of
bird flu and epidemic prevention.
After domestic poultry at a local farm were confirmed to have
the H5N1 virus on June 7 over 17,100 birds were culled.
(Xinhua News Agency July 5, 2006)