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Strict controls after bird flu death

BEIJING: Beijing has banned live poultry from other parts of the country from entering the city, two days after a 19-year-old woman died of bird flu.

Birds can be brought into the city only with permission from the city’s headquarters of animal disease control.

The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Agriculture has ordered better monitoring of the live poultry trade, and experts have begun to inspect the city’s slaughterhouses and poultry farms.

No domestic fowl were kept within 10 km of the Sanjianfangdong village of the Chaoyang district in Beijing, where the dead woman lived, said municipal officials.

A total of 116 people, including the patient’s 14 family members and neighbours and 102 medical workers, had been in close contact with the patient.

One nurse who had been in contact with the patient suffered from fever. The nurse has recovered.

China has reported the case to the World Health Organisation and informed the health authorities of the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions.

Meanwhile, workers disinfected the Yanjiaoxinggong market in Sanhe city, in Hebei province neighbouring Beijing, on Wednesday morning. The woman bought nine ducks at the market on December 19.

The market’s five shops selling live poultry have been closed.

The Sanhe city government has set up a task force to deal with bird flu prevention, quarantine and market regulation issues.

Health authorities have examined 15 people engaged in the live poultry trade in the market, and all were free of the disease. The authorities also surveyed city residents who had been diagnosed with fever and all poultry farms, and found no problems.

Authorities also started bird flu prevention measures in Tianjin, the suspected origin of the ducks. — Xinhua

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