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China to unveil 5-year AIDS control plan
(Reuters/chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2005-11-30 13:31 Bird flu
At the conference, Gao refuted accusations that China covered
up human infections of bird flu, but said ill-equipped and ill-trained
doctors might be unable to detect cases.
Gao Qiang also said Shanghai
Pharmaceutical was in talks with Swiss drug giant Roche to obtain the technology
to manufacture the anti-viral drug Tamiflu that can be used to treat bird flu
infections in people.
"I am not worried about governments at various
levels covering up an epidemic," Gao said. "But I am worried about the inability
of our medical and quarantine personnel at the local level to diagnose and
discover epidemics in a timely fashion due to their low abilities and relatively
backward equipment."
The H5N1 strain is known to have infected 133
people in Asia since late 2003, killing 68 of them. It remains hard for people
to catch, but experts fear it could mutate and become easily passed from person
to person, sparking a global pandemic in which millions could die.
China
has reported 30 outbreaks in poultry caused by the H5N1 avian flu virus this
year in 11 regions and provinces, from the far southwest to the frigid
northeast, Gao said.
It has confirmed three cases of bird-to-human
infections, two of whom have died. There have been no reports of human-to-human
infections.
Gao defended the government, saying official figures
announced were "transparent, comprehensive and accurate".
He rejected a
report on the Web site of US-based Chinese-language news portal Boxun,
www.boxun.com, which listed the names and addresses of 70 people it said were
infected in the northeastern province of Liaoning alone, 14 of whom had died.
"Apart from creating social chaos, I can't guess what Boxun's intentions
are," Gao said.
China, the world's biggest poultry-producing nation, has
culled more than 20 million birds this year in a bid to contain the spread of
avian influenza and announced plans to vaccinate billions of birds.
The
central government will cover 50 percent of vaccination and culling costs of
poultry farmers in central China, 20 percent of those on the eastern coast and
80 percent in the western hinterland, the cabinet's National Development and
Reform Commission said on its Web site.
The government has exempted
poultry farmers from paying income taxes and agreed to refund value-added taxes.
The central bank on Tuesday ordered banks to boost working capital loans for
poultry companies and bird flu vaccine makers.
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