A total of 42.6 million domestic fowls in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have received compulsory inoculations following an outbreak of bird flu in the region last month, according to local authorities.

The inoculation rate has reached 100 percent in the autonomous region, said the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Regional Bird Flu Control Headquarters Office.

Nearly 1,000 chickens and ducks were reported to have died suddenly on a poultry farm in the Xincheng Village of Jiuyuan District in Baotou City on September 27. The national avian influenza laboratory later confirmed that the H5N1 virus was found in samples of the dead poultry. About 30,000 fowls within three kilometers of the farm were subsequently slaughtered. No human infections were found.

Three million domestic fowls in Baotou had been inoculated by October 11. Poultry and egg products from the bird flu-stricken areas were not put on sale.

Two outbreaks of bird flu have been reported since last month, which killed around 2,000 domestic poultry in the autonomous regions of Inner Mongolia and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

(Xinhua News Agency October 23, 2006)