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| Sunday, 29 January 2006 |
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China lifts quarantine in bird-flu-hit area SHANGHAI, Jan 28 (Reuters) China has lifted the quarantine on the last of 33 areas that had reported outbreaks of bird flu, the official Xinhua news agency said. The Ministry of Agriculture approved the ending of quarantine on Friday in an area of southwestern Guizhou Province after no new cases were reported for 21 days. No poultry had been allowed into or out of the area during the quarantine period. Markets had been closed and infected birds, or those suspected of being infected, culled. A Chinese woman died of bird flu this week, the seventh person to die from the disease in the mainland since November. No outbreaks of bird flu in poultry have been confirmed in the area of Sichuan Province where this latest victim lived. Bird flu has killed at least 83 people worldwide since it re-emerged in late 2003, according to World Health Organisation figures. Millions of poultry have been killed to prevent the spread of the disease, which can be passed to humans through contact with sick birds. Experts worry that the H5N1 virus could mutate to spread easily among humans, leading to a global pandemic. In Hong Kong, the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department said it was conducting further tests on a dead oriental magpie robin to confirm a suspected case of H5 avian influenza. |
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