China and bird flu: not credible

The UK has a bird flu outbreak in turkeys. With any luck the government will do a better job of it than they did last time, although they are slashing funds for control of the problem, which doesn't make much sense. But at least we know about it and how serious it is or it isn't. We don't have to guess or wonder or suspect. Not true for China, also experiencing an outbreak in the southern city of Guangzhou. As usual, China is controlling the news. They are also probably suppressing it:

The outbreak in Guangzhou's Panyu district is the first of the H5N1 bird flu strain since May, but it has been brought under control, the Agriculture Ministry said. The ministry's Web site said 36,130 ducks had been culled; other news reports suggested more than double that number had been killed.

"All areas which have bird flu outbreaks have to stop trade in live poultry across the board, and shut wet markets," or live animal markets, the director of the State Administration of Industry and Commerce, Zhou Bohua, said at a news conference in Beijing.

[snip]

Zhou's department is in charge of making sure that animal products from contaminated areas do not make it to market. "Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and other big cities have already abandoned wet markets and conduct regulated slaughter, transportation and selling," Zhou said, adding that "every step of the way" was being supervised. (Washington Post)

That's the official story, anyway. Since the Agriculture MInistry, the same folks who have not been sharing bird flu viruses, won't answer specific questions, one wonders. Or guesses. Or suspects.

In Guangzhou, reporters and editors were told not to cover the outbreak themselves, but to use only the version provided by the official New China News Agency. In Hong Kong, some media chafed at the restrictions.

"Alarm Bells Are Ringing," Hong Kong's Mingpao newspaper editorialized Tuesday, a day after the city suspended chilled and frozen duck imports from Guangdong.

The paper said that birds began to die in large numbers in Panyu on Sept. 5, but that it wasn't until last Wednesday that local officials told the Panyu government of the outbreak and not until Thursday that Guangdong provincial authorities learned of it.

It's easy to see the wheels turning in the minds of Chinese bureaucrats. Olympics next summer. Huge brouhaha over safety of Chinese toys and foods. Better keep quiet. Controlling and suppressing information has worked in the past. Well, for SARS, maybe it didn't work so well, but . . . Anyway, you don't expect us to learn, do you?

Memo to China's leaders: There's something called the Internet, now. You can't bottle up news as easily as you once could. And be are all wondering, guessing, suspecting that you are lying to us. We have good reasons.

Meanwhile, what to do?

A woman from the Animal Husbandry Institute at Guangdong's Academy of Agricultural Sciences who declined to give her name expressed confidence in the government. "Who else can we trust?" she said. "If you are suspicious with anything you eat here, you'd better eat nothing."

Well if you put it like that.

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good, points but you have made the chronology confusing.

post story is from september

"slashing the budget,"in this case, is not what it seems.
this is just loose newspaper talk for a minor budgetary dispute between the central government department and local councils over who will pick up the tab for some extra expenses. the sum in question is all of $2.5 million, compared to the hundreds of million dollars the UK has spent on other aspects of the flu issue.

Sandy: Thanks for pointing that out (I actually didn't realize it, so it was my error). I don't think things have changed, however.

I'm not sure what value to attach to this report - it fits the context rather than the actual subject: "China provides WHO with bird flu strains"

news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/13/content_7067412.htm

Where's the breaking news from Porti Rico about killing of all animals????? We allready know cats carry H5N1 Dogs do too. We the people are not stupid....

In the UK, the farm monitoring, reporting and outbreak response seems well practised: we are a small, densely populated island with a lot of intensive agriculture and the response (to a mere zoology grad, not a fan of this government) seems good. Farms in any way related to the index farm are having their poultry stock killed tonight.

The central government is generally squeezing its grants to local governments, and given that they are the front line in disaster response, it is likely that many local authorities are sending financial resources to 'front line services' (social services, emptying bins, transport) and emergency planning will be malnourished. They will hope that come a catastrophe, national government will weigh in or face PR disaster. (I'm a former city councillor).

As for pandemic planning, if there is any I have yet to hear of it here and I'm on the lookout for it.

Peter, if your government doesn't start- you start. Alone, but preferably with others. Make a noise, refuse to give in/up-prepare yourself, help others to prepare.

China continues to insist that they have had no bird flu outbreaks and that they are bird flu free. However, on Nov. 13, 2007, China presented 23 different 'human' strains of H5N1 viral samples (complete with gene sequences) to the WHO. http://afludiary.blogspot.com/2007/11/report-china-releases-bird-flu-sa…

The good news is that China has shared the viral samples with the WHO for the world to share and prepare. The questionable news is; if China has been bird flu free, then where did they get the 'human' samples from? If China truely has the bird flu under control, then why are there so many different 'human' samples?

By Mel Miller (not verified) on 15 Nov 2007 #permalink