China denies New Scientist flu claim
China today denied allegations by a British magazine that it was responsible for the start of the current bird-flu epidemic, saying any such suggestion was “groundless and disrespectful to science”.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue took strong issue with the report in the New Scientist.
The publication alleged that the bird-flu outbreak began a year ago, most likely in China, and alleged that Chinese authorities hid the emergence of the disease even as they dealt with the fallout of the emergence of Sars.
“We believe that this allegation is totally inaccurate, groundless and disrespectful to science,” Zhang said at a briefing.
She said understanding the disease required a “large amount” of research and expertise.
Citing unnamed health experts, the New Scientist said “a combination of official cover-up and questionable farming practices allowed it to turn into the epidemic now under way”.
It said that after the last outbreak of bird flu in Hong Kong, Chinese producers started vaccinating birds with inactivated H5N1 virus – the same kind linked with most of the cases in the current epidemic – in hopes of preventing sickness.
But the decision might have backfired because the vaccine was “not a good match for the virus,” the New Scientist said, and “may have allowed the virus to spread widely without being spotted”.
