Bird flu outbreak in Guangdong ducks

By Guo Shipeng  |   2008-6-18  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

CHINA yesterday reported a bird flu outbreak in ducks in Guangdong, the southern province close to Hong Kong where poultry at all commercial markets was culled last week.

The Guangdong outbreak, in a village administered by Jiangmen City, was first detected on Friday, the Xinhua news agency reported.

The National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory confirmed yesterday that the virus the birds contracted was a subtype of the H5N1 strain, Xinhua quoted the Ministry of Agriculture as saying. A total of 3,873 ducks died of the disease and a further 17,127 were culled as part of a contingency plan that had effectively contained the outbreak, according to Xinhua.

Guangdong provides much of Hong Kong's poultry. Hong Kong banned poultry imports from the mainland for 21 days after the first instance of the virus was discovered there in early June.

China's mainland reported its last bird flu outbreak in April in Tibet. It also recorded an outbreak in March in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong.