Latest human death of bird flu prompts prevention bids
By Pan Zhongming and Liang Qiwen (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-03-11 06:51

For more than half a year, Shenzhen has been keeping a close eye on the bird flu situation. But with the confirmation of a man's death due to bird flu in Guangzhou on Sunday, the city joins other major Chinese areas in furthering its prevention and control of the virus.

Chen Shaohua, general secretary of Shenzhen Catering Service Association, said more than 200 catering enterprises in the city have committed to only selling poultry products that are completely boiled. His association has already banned all the catering enterprises in the city from selling domestic fowl and poultry that died of sickness or unidentified reasons.

Markets in Shenzhen have also taken overall preventive measures. They are now following all health formalities and vow to strictly follow the requirements.

"Beginning from today, we are not allowed to slaughter chickens," said one vendor at a stand for slaughtering at a supermarket in Jingtian, Futian District. He said there used to be six stands selling live fowls, and two usually did the slaughtering. On some days, more than 100 chickens were slaughtered. But during the past few days, only about 30 chickens were killed.

A staff member at the market said that upon receiving the notice on Thursday, the market banned slaughtering. Chicken now must be taken to an enclosed slaughter yard instead.

Other cities are also getting on board to prevent the spread of bird flu.

Some live poultry traders in wet markets in six cities in Guangdong Province were forced to suspend their businesses on Wednesday for an unspecified period in a latest attempt to prevent the fatal bird flu.

On Wednesday, the Industrial and Commercial Administration of Guangdong Province banned on-the-spot poultry slaughtering in both the province's wet markets and supermarkets effective immediately, with a grace period of two days.

The six cities are Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan and Zhuhai.

The administration also pledged to vaccinate and quarantine all poultry in the province to prevent new bird flu outbreaks.

Some traders in Guangzhou, however, continued to slaughter live chickens at their booths yesterday.

"The government told me the ban will take effect in this market tomorrow. I will close my booth and suspend my business for some time," a female chicken trader who identified herself as Lin said yesterday.

"I am feeding 30 live chickens at my booth. I am now trying hard to sell as many as possible," she said, adding she was already experiencing an 80 per cent drop in sales.

As a dietetic tradition, Guangdong people prefer to buy live poultry at markets and ask traders to slaughter the poultries for them on the spot, so they are the most tender. However, experts say this is a high-risk activity for transmitting the bird flu virus.

Guangzhou Municipal Industrial and Commercial Bureau has tried to come up with a solution for the chicken traders.

The bureau has rebuilt most markets in Guangzhou in the past two years, setting up separate rooms for poultry slaughtering.

"We will allow the traders to slaughter chickens in the separate rooms to ensure the process of slaughtering is clean and safe," Ye Huaxin, an officer of the bureau, told China Daily yesterday. The scheme has been approved by the provincial administration.

"As for the markets without separate rooms, we will work out suitable solution in the near future," he said

In Wuxi, East China's Jiangsu Province, vendors of domestic fowls are required to make a public notice, disclosing where the chicken comes from, the quarantine situation, the date of notice and telephone number for complaints.

In Changsha, capital of Central China's Hunan Province, the municipal industrial and commercial administration has launched a "Red Shield Storm" programme to strengthen market supervision and strictly prevent livestock and poultry products without quarantine from entering the market.

(China Daily 03/11/2006 page3)