Is A Human Pandemic Next? — page 3

The China Syndrome
No country is more important than China in the battle to control avian flu. With its vast population of chickens and ducks living in intimate proximity to each other and their human owners, southern China in particular has been the source of many of the major flu viruses to hit the world in the past 100 years. In China, any outbreak of flu has the ability to be amplified on a scale that dwarfs what is happening anywhere else in the region. Moreover, China's record of dealing with the SARS outbreak was profoundly mixed: after initially denying it had a problem, the central government executed a dramatic about-face, ordering bureaucrats to come clean on the number and location of cases and to cooperate fully with agencies such as the WHO.

This time around, China has shown alarming signs that it has somehow failed to learn the lessons of SARS. For weeks, while avian flu rampaged through much of Asia, Chinese officials insisted—to the disbelief of many experts—that the disease had not struck their country. During that time they made little effort to tell farmers what to do if their flocks began dying, and failed to offer timely information to U.N. organizations in Beijing that had requested briefings. The delays almost certainly cost local governments in the mainland valuable weeks in preparing to deal with the emergence of avian flu.

On Jan. 27 the central government acknowledged that the outbreak had reached China, and a more open approach seemed to take root. The state-controlled media announced that 14,000 birds had been culled in Longan county in the southern province of Guangxi. A day later President Hu Jintao took time out from his state visit to France to call on local governments to remain on "high alert." The Ministry of Agriculture demanded that all outbreaks be reported within 24 hours. And in an obvious nod to the SARS debacle, it added that "any cover-ups or false reports are strictly prohibited." It also called on local governments to lay plans for slaughtering infected flocks and vaccinating neighboring ones.

	It feels funny watching officials on TV telling you to be cautious of avian flu, when all you have are empty chicken pens. Where were they when our chickens were dying? —AH TONG,  Indonesian chicken farmer

In Dingdang, a sleepy town in southern Guangxi, which abuts the duck farm that was the first officially acknowledged site of China's bird-flu infection, authorities appear to be taking the outbreak very seriously. When reporters from TIME visited the area last week, women in its main market were selling carefully arranged fresh vegetables; but in the covered section where the meat vendors work, there was neither live poultry nor a single piece of chicken or duck meat. "Ordinarily, this place would be packed with chickens and ducks," said a man searing the outside of a goat's head with a blowtorch, "but the government confiscated everything two days ago." Local residents said that officials dressed in full protective gear—disposable isolation suits, masks, gloves and goggles—went from house to house, taking away all of the poultry within a 3-km radius of the outbreak on a nearby duck farm. The officials sprayed disinfectant and distributed bottles of it to residents. They also compensated people for their lost fowl, paying up to $3 per bird.

Such efforts seem more necessary than ever, now that the disease appears to be spreading inexorably to other parts of the country. By late last week, officials had confirmed outbreaks in Hunan and Hubei provinces in central China. Suspected cases were also being reported across eastern China: Anhui and Guangdong provinces were potential hot spots, according to state media, as well as Kangqiao, a suburb of Shanghai. On Friday morning, a Kangqiao doctor surnamed Chen was summoned to an urgent meeting by town cadres. There, he was handed a disposable isolation suit and told that he and 100 or so other local residents were to round up all the poultry in the area. The official reason? A private duck farm in nearby Yiyuan village had 200 ducks that had succumbed to suspected bird flu the day before. But Kangqiao is a small, chatty place, and the rumor mill quickly hit high gear among the makeshift bird-collecting team; they traded gossip about a child from Yiyuan who might have been hospitalized for suspected bird flu. Another doctor at the local Zhoupu hospital said he had been told about the child's case, although he denied the child was checked into his hospital.

For their part, municipal authorities denied the existence of any suspected human cases in Shanghai, sending out a rare press release specifically rebutting charges of a cover-up and calling such allegations "sheer rumors." Their response was undercut by the lockdown mode hitting China's largest city. On Friday afternoon, local journalists were instructed by the Shanghai Publicity Bureau that they had to directly submit any stories about the potential bird-flu outbreak to government censors. A few hours later, police had blocked most major roads leading into Kangqiao, in part to stop journalists from entering. Meanwhile, Kangqiao's Dr. Chen still wasn't sure what was going on. By Saturday morning, he and the rest of the poultry team had collected tens of thousands of birds headed for slaughter. Rumors of a sick local child were still percolating, and now even the small road leading to his neighborhood had been blockaded by police.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Next

	Playing Chicken [January 26, 2004] Thaksin Shinawatra's government comes clean on the extent of avian flu in Thailand On High Alert [January 19, 2004] From Japan to Vietnam, Asian countries are culling millions of chickens infected with a strain of bird flu that can also prove deadly to humans. Can they prevent a pandemic? The Cycle of Death [April 7, 2003] SARS is only the latest in a string of epidemics to emerge from southern China Hong Kong's Fowl Problem [February 15, 2002] Hong Kong's latest bird flu scare points to a lack of Chinese cooperation More Related Items | Search all issues of TIME Magazine