The news came when the nation was still immersed in the festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year, which fell on Jan. 22. Chinese people were enjoying a week-long holiday for the festival.

Death of ducks was reported on a duck farm on Jan. 23 in Dingdang Township of Long'an County, and the dead duck samples were sent immediately to the national bird flu reference laboratory.

After testing on the samples, the lab confirmed on Tuesday that the death was caused by the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus. The news was announced to the nation and the world immediately after the confirmation.

Sun Yu, vice-chairman of the autonomous region, called a press conference on Wednesday for timely media coverage of the situation to satisfy the public's demand for related information. Sun also promised that the regional government would prove reliable in the battle against bird flu.

After the confirmation, Premier Wen Jiabao and Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu called on the local governments to take effective and decisive measures to prevent the epidemic from spreading.

Local officials had cut short their Spring Festival holiday to handle the case after the duck death was reported.

Right after the duck death was reported, the local government killed 14,000 poultry in a three-km area around the duck farm, and vaccinated all poultry mandatorily within five kilometers from the duck farm.

The local government has isolated the area following the death report in accordance with China's Law on Animal Epidemic Prevention.

Separately, in Wuxue, a city in central China's Hubei Province, poultry-raising farmers were warned against the spread of the possible epidemic.

Over 70,000 chickens were slaughtered near Zhanglingshang Village in Shifo Township, where the suspected cases were reported.

Farm owner Chen Lianfu, whose chicken farm was reported to have suspected bird flu cases, is reportedly in good shape and people who had close contact with him are under quarantine and medical monitoring.

Provincial disease control director Gao Zhongming said that Hubei had launched a round-the-clock monitoring mechanism of the epidemic.

Suspected bird flu cases were also reported in Hunan, a province connecting Guangxi and Hubei.

Local health and disease control departments had been required to do the epidemic control and prevention work as they did during last year's outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.

Poultry and their meat and eggs from Wugang city, where suspected cases were reported, are currently suffering a shipping ban.

All poultry meat and eggs cannot enter the market in the province before their sources are clarified and quarantine measures are taken.

Governor Zhou Bohua urged local officials at an emergency meeting early Wednesday morning that poultry death cases must be reported without delay to guarantee timely control measures.

So far, no infections in human beings have been found in the country.

(Xinhua News Agency January 28, 2004)