Except for checkpoints guarded with workers spraying disinfectant and farm roads covered with decontaminating lime, the area that reported China's first bird flu case a few weeks ago seems like any other village in the southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Life appears blissfully normal in the village. The picture is rosy there now as local people are ready for a lift of enforced quarantine, a full 21 days after dead ducks there were diagnosed as having contracted the deadly H5N1 virus on January 27 which led to the quarantining of a Dingdang neighbourhood.

"The occurrence of bird flu in Dingdang Town is a mishap for the county, but the government has taken every possible and responsible measures to contain it," said Gan Qiangzhong, deputy magistrate of Longan County in the southwest part of Guangxi.

Dingdang is small among the six towns in Longan, a county with a population of 371,000.

It all started with farmer Huang Shengde, who reported to the town veterinary service on January 23 that more than 200 of his ducks had suddenly died.

Thanks to enhanced vigilance by local officials against avian influenza, which has caused great distress among neighbouring nations in recent weeks, the Longan County veterinary station promptly suspected bird flu might be the cause at Huang's farm. They in turn advised local quarantine staff to cull all the remaining 1,225 ducks in Huang's neighbourhood that night, according to Gan.

Four days later, test results from a national lab decided that Dingdang's outbreak was indeed a bird flu infection. In the days since then, the number of birds culled within 3 kilometres of the spot has risen to 13,596.

In addition to conducting free compulsory vaccination on poultry and closing live fowl markets in areas ranging between 5 and 10 kilometres from the epidemic spot, the local government has compensated Dingdang farmers by 129,630 yuan (US$15,618) for slaughtering their poultry to help block the spread of the disease.

Doctors have also monitored the health conditions of Huang and another 31 people in the farming area to make sure they are not suffering from any flu symptoms.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, a new suspected case of bird flu was reported in Shaoguan, South China's Guangdong Province yesterday.

(China Daily February 13, 2004)