China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) has taken a range of measures to prevent bird flu spread in domestic market, its sources said on Monday.

The MOC has established a quick response mechanism in this area, making a daily report on the commodity market in the bird flu epidemic zone and monitoring the sales and price fluctuations of fowl and eggs in 113 major cities across the country.

Meanwhile, local authorities have also enhanced relevant regulations over poultry wholesale and retail enterprises, asking them to provide certificates so as to guarantee that products came from reliable sources.

The MOC stepped up management over poultry and livestock culling, urging slaughterhouses to conduct intensified disinfection over poultry transport vehicles as well as loading and unloading equipment.

Moreover, the ministry ordered local departments not to prohibit the transport of qualified and examined poultry products from epidemic zones, so as to safeguard the normal circulation of these products.

This year, China has reported three outbreaks of bird flu among poultry, a sharp decrease compared with 49 such cases during the same period of 2004, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

A total of 35 bird flu outbreaks have been reported in China since 2005, which sickened 194,000 fowl and culled 186,000 of them, the MOA claimed. About 22.8 million fowl were culled to halt the disease from spreading and all the outbreaks have been contained.
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(Xinhua News Agency March 27, 2006)