China has strengthened the supervision and monitoring of the bird flu outbreak as more infected birds were reportedly found in two counties in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Tuesday.

China's National Avian Flu Reference Laboratory confirmed that the dead fowl from family-run farms in Zepu and Urumqi counties were infected with the H5N1 strain, according to the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) on Tuesday.

A total of 322,500 birds within a three-kilometer radius of the two counties have been culled, and poultry markets within a 10-kilometer radius have been closed, the ministry said

"The epidemic is under control," said Qian Zhi, vice chairman of Xinjiang, adding that the two counties have bought large quantities of bird flu vaccine for birds, protective suits and disinfectants to prevent the spread of the disease.

These cases have aroused national attention, just a day after the MOA announced another highly pathogenic bird flu outbreak at a village near Huainan city in east China's Anhui Province, which involved the culling of about 130,000 fowl.

The ministry has sent expert panels and supervision teams to Anhui and Xinjiang to assist in the emergency procedures.

Other provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have strengthened monitoring on poultry farms and migrant birds, which are believed to be carriers of the virus.

South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has set up special monitoring stations at its eight counties bordering Vietnam, which has also reported a major bird flu outbreak.

In addition, Guangxi's health departments have resumed monitoring people suffering from fevers in hospitals. They have also started a vaccination program for the elderly, children, medical workers, and poultry farmers, traders and butchers.

In the southern province of Fujian, the provincial forestry department has set up 24 monitoring stations to study migrant birds.

The stations are required to submit daily reports on the condition of the birds, alive or dead.

In Changchun, provincial capital of northeast China's Jilin Province, the government has begun vaccinating pigeons in the city.

Amidst the already edgy atmosphere, news that the quarantine on Tianchang City in Anhui and Xiangtan County in central China's Hunan Province on Tuesday injected some confidence in the central government's capacity to control the disease.

An outbreak was reported in Wantang Village, Xiangtan County on October 18, and in Tianchang on October 20.

The MOA said that there have no new reports of the disease in the last 21 days following a three-week quarantine.

?(Xinhua News Agency November 16, 2005)