China has slaughtered more than 13,000 birds after an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus was confirmed in the far west, state media said.
The outbreak is the first reported among birds this year despite the deaths of five people from the virus.
Eight people have contracted bird flu this year in China but no sick poultry have been found in the areas where the patients fell ill, despite inspections of hundreds of thousands of birds.
The WHO has said the lack of cases raises questions about the quality of China’s surveillance system.
The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture said 519 fowl died and were confirmed as having the H5N1 strain of bird flu, the official Xinhua news agency reported late on Tuesday.
The fowl died in Hetian Prefecture, also known as Hotan, in Xinjiang.
The ministry and the regional government have taken emergency measures, Xinhua said, killing 13,218 fowl.
The epidemic has been brought under control, it said.
While outbreaks in birds and people pop up regularly, there is usually a spike in cases during the colder months because the virus survives longer and the chance of infection increases.
The last reported outbreak in fowl was in mid-December, when authorities in eastern China killed more than 300,000 fowl after bird flu was discovered in chickens in Jiangsu Province.
One of the five fatal human cases this year was a 31-year-old woman from Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, who fell ill on Jan. 10 and died nearly two weeks later.
Hetian is 920km south of Urumqi.
The H5N1 strain has killed at least 254 people worldwide since 2003, most through contact with sick birds. Scientists are monitoring the virus because of its potential to mutate into a new human influenza virus, which could infect millions.
But scientists have found little mutation in the virus strains taken from those patients and no mutation that would allow human to human transmission, Xinhua quoted a spokesman for the Ministry of Health as saying.
Also See: A bird flu epidemic in the making
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS