China bans poultry imports
China and Vietnam banned poultry imports from countries with bird flu as US and Chinese officials met today to co-ordinate strategy on stopping the spread of the deadly virus.
Vietnam banned raw blood pudding and poultry-raising in big cities, while a Chinese drug producer was reportedly in talks with the Swiss maker of the anti-flu drug Tamiflu about possibly producing it in China.
The US yesterday promised to spend millions of dollars to make and test a human bird flu vaccine in Vietnam as Asian governments stepped up measures to prevent an outbreak in people.
Experts worry that the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus sweeping through bird flocks in Asia and pockets of eastern Europe could mutate into a human flu that could kill millions.
Yesterday, Washington and Beijing agreed to step up technical co-operation and information exchanges, while also promoting understanding of international standards in the poultry trade, the newspaper China Daily reported.
Today, Chinese and US agriculture and quarantine officials, as well as representatives of the World Health Organisation, were meeting in Beijing to discuss anti-flu measures, according to American officials.
No details of the talks were immediately released.
The Chinese poultry ban affects imports of birds and related products from 14 countries and took effect on Friday, according to the Agriculture Ministry website. It covers imports from Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Japan, Romania, North Korea, Croatia, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Mongolia, Turkey, Russia and Sweden.
Vietnamese state media said that country’s ban covered poultry and pet birds but didn’t specify from which affected countries.
“From now on, processing and trading raw blood pudding from poultry and animals is strictly prohibited,” the Communist Party newspaper Nhan Dan (People) quoted a directive from Prime Minister Phan Van Khai as saying.
Khai called on authorities to raise public awareness of the danger of bird flu, the paper said.
At least 62 people in Asia have been killed by the H5N1 bird flu virus since 2003, but most of the deaths have been linked to close contact with infected birds. More than 40 of the victims died in Vietnam.
Despite the massive US funding commitment, Bush and other officials warned people not to panic about the threat of a human flu pandemic.
As nations try to control the H5N1 bird flu virus so it doesn’t mutate into a form that can be spread between people, public fears already have affected the tourism and poultry industries in some countries, Doug Chester, Australia’s ambassador to the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum said yesterday after a two-day meeting of disaster co-ordinators from the region.
“There is an element of scare-mongering that is undermining effective planning in some economies, and it’s causing unnecessary economic damage to some economies,” Chester said.
As part of flu pandemic preparations in the world’s most populous nation and home to billions of chickens, Chinese drugs giant Shanghai Pharmaceutical Group is in contact with Switzerland’s Roche AG about making Tamiflu, the antiviral drug believed to be the best defence against a possible flu pandemic, a Roche spokeswoman said yesterday.
Indonesia was gearing up today to intensify surveillance of wild birds to determine their suspected role in transmitting the H5N1 avian influenza virus.
Jakarta has vowed to step up efforts to tackle the spread of the disease, taking a hard look at backyard chickens and domestic birds, believed to be the source of infection for Indonesia’s human victims.
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