18 February 2008
China reports new bird flu outbreak in TAR
(Reuters) Chinese authorities have reported a bird flu outbreak in poultry in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), the second in two weeks. The outbreak, which started on 06 February in a village outside Lhasa, has killed 132 birds and led to the culling of 7,698 more, the Agriculture Ministry said. The National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory said that the virus the birds contracted was a subtype of the H5N1 strain. Authorities have taken emergency measures to bring the epidemic under "effective control". An outbreak of the H5N1 strain in Tibet's Gongkar county on 25 January killed 1,000 chickens and ducks.