China halts import of U.S. poultry amid fears of bird flu

BEIJING -- China banned U.S. poultry imports Tuesday after U.S. officials reported bird flu in a flock of chickens in Delaware. Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea took similar steps.

China said any American fowl that have already arrived at its ports would be returned or destroyed.

Hours later, U.S. officials reported avian flu on a second farm in central Delaware. The state canceled all sales of live poultry.

The U.S. strain is different from that affecting most of Asia; it is milder and does not affect humans.

Exports account for about 20 percent of the U.S. poultry industry. China imports only a fraction of its poultry products -- 709,000 tons last year -- but most of that comes from the United States.

By contrast, China produced more than 9.9 million tons of chicken meat alone last year -- 20 percent of total worldwide production.

Confirmed case

On Tuesday, China confirmed a previously suspected case in its remote northeastern region of Xinjiang, which is more than 1,200 miles from the site of its first confirmed case in the far south.

China has slaughtered millions of fowl and inoculated millions more to try to contain the disease. The more dangerous form of bird flu is confirmed or suspected in 14 of the nation's 31 far-flung regions.

Concerned the virus could spread to endangered birds, the government said Tuesday it also has resettled as many as 250 rare ibis atop a remote mountain.

No human cases have been reported in the country, although at least 19 people have died from the disease in Thailand and Vietnam in recent weeks. China has already banned poultry imports from those countries as well as other flu-hit areas in Asia.

In December, China banned beef products from the United States after a case of mad cow disease was reported there. That prohibition has not been rescinded.

Henry Niman, a Harvard University Medical School instructor and a frequent critic of government SARS responses, said Tuesday he was skeptical of the notion that there were no human cases in a nation of 1.3 billion people with so many poultry infections.

"The idea that there are no human cases in China just doesn't really ring true," said Niman, who moderates a widely read e-mail list about SARS and launched its bird-flu equivalent this week.

"It seems that they've got the virus pretty widespread and it's been around for some time," he said. "That leads me to believe that there's more going on in China than the outside world knows about."

The WHO's representative in Beijing also has voiced concern that China may already have human cases of bird flu.