The Ministry of Agriculture announced on Tuesday that the bird flu epidemic in Hotan County of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region had been controlled.

A report from the Xinjiang Headquarters for Severe Animal Epidemic Prevention to the ministry said no new cases had occurred in the past 21 days since the last bird in the infected area was culled.

Hotan County Government removed its quarantine restrictions on Sunday after an expert panel was sent to check and evaluate local epidemic prevention work.

The expert panel agreed that the quarantine and disinfection work were in accordance with national regulations, and confirmed that no more poultry had been identified with the H5N1 virus and no human cases had been found.

The ministry required the local government to tighten its monitoring of animal epidemics, and to raise public awareness of bird flu and epidemic prevention.

After domestic poultry at a local farm were confirmed to have the H5N1 virus on June 7, more than 17,100 birds were culled.

(Xinhua News Agency July 5, 2006)