Shandong Province, east China, has reinstated round-the-clock bird flu monitoring to prevent possible outbreaks as more and more migratory birds fly over the province on their way further south.

Li Zhanpeng, head of the provincial wildlife protection center, said that all 153 monitoring stations in the province were ordered to report on a daily basis.

Local people were also called on to report deaths of wild birds to the provincial wildlife protection center. Its telephone hot line number is 0531-88557707, Li said.

Wild birds migrate through eight routes around the world, three of which traverse China. Migratory birds flying from East Asia to Australia pass Shandong Province.

China has reported nine outbreaks of bird flu in poultry this year, in northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, north China's Shanxi Province and Inner Mongolia, east China's Anhui Province, southwestern Guizhou and Sichuan provinces and the central province of Hunan.

Since 2003 China has reported 21 human infections of bird flu which have caused 14 deaths. Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recorded 256 human infections including 151 deaths as of Oct. 16.

(Xinhua News Agency November 3, 2006)