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Human avian flu virus found in wild bird in east China province
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-01-11 10:50
A wild bird in east China's Anhui Province has been identified as a carrier
of the human avian flu virus, Ministry of Agriculture has announced.
Chinese researchers have detected the H5N1 strain of the highly pathogenic
bird flu virus in brain tissues of a brown crake that was found dead in Zongyang
county, where a human bird flu case was reported last year.
A gene sequencing analysis has shown the virus detected in a dead bird was
99.6 percent homologous with the virus separated from the human bird flu
patient, Ministry of Agriculture quoted a report released by a state lab for
avian flu research.
The dead bird was found by Guo Fusheng, a researcher with the ministry's
animal quarantine institute, in a pond close to where the bird flu patient
lives.
Experts say local farmers are in close contacts with the wild bird and its
droppings. Once the infectant enters their respiratory or digestive systems,
they become susceptible to the bird-borne disease.
Brown crake, also known as red-feet crake, lives in rice field and ponds and
lays eggs in reeds and wetlands. The bird is found in many areas south of the
Yangtze and east of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Guizhou Province, as
well as the northeastern part of Vietnam, said zoologists with the Chinese
Academy of Sciences.
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