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Experts with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)Tuesday said they are impressed by China's commitment in fighting against bird flu and suggested China improve study into the new situation of bird flu outbreak among wild birds.
Noureddin Mona, FAO representative in China, said that the measures China had taken after the bird flu outbreak in the northwestern province of Qinghai were effective.
"We see strong commitment from Chinese governments at all levels in combating the disease, and they have good guidelines," said Mona at a press conference held Tuesday.
Bird flu outbreak is a new challenge to the whole world, not China alone, said Mona. "There's no precedent in the world as for bird flu in wild birds."
Mona was a member of a team that had just came back from a WHO and FAO joint mission to Qinghai, in the wake of an outbreak of bird flu in wild birds reported last month.
The team was accompanied by officials from the Chinese Ministry of Health, Ministry of Agriculture and State Administration of Forestry.
Julie Hall, official with the WHO China Office in charge of communicable diseases, said that in Qinghai, the team was happy to find that close collaboration, complete system and high awareness of the disease among the local people.
Hall said they found that wild birds were still dying. So far, more than 5,000 wild birds already died on the island where the bird flu case was reported.
China confirmed the bird flu outbreak in Qinghai on May 21, saying early report on death of wild animals on May 4 was caused by H5N1 virus. By May 26, more than 1,000 wild birds had been killed by the disease.
Hall called on the Chinese government to take immediate and thorough study "before it was too late."
The migratory birds are still on the island, but they will begin flying off to other parts of China and to neighboring countries in about a month.
"So we believe there is a window of opportunity to study these birds... but this window is only a month and a half," Hall said.
"This is vital if we are to give an early warning to other countries before they come," said Hall.
(Xinhua News Agency June 28, 2005)
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