The quarantine of areas hit by outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza amongst poultry in northeast China's Liaoning Province since the end of October has now been lifted, the local government announced on Thursday afternoon.

The 21-day quarantine's removal had been approved by national bird flu control headquarters, said Zhou Liyuan, head of the provincial bird flu control headquarters.

Heishan County, Beining City and Nanzhan New District in the prefecture of Jinzhou, and Fuxin Mongolian Autonomous County in the prefecture of Fuxin all confirmed successive outbreaks from November 3.

No new cases were reported in the last three weeks in these areas, the longest incubation period for the virus, said Zhou, and none had reported any human cases.

"Of course it's good news, because I can sell chicken again," said Li Jingsheng, a dealer at Taihe Market in Heishan, who began to sell pork instead of chicken on November 3 when the market banned chicken and egg sales.

"The most important thing for me to do now is to help my fellow villagers reduce their economic losses by raising livestock, like pigs, cattle or sheep," said Zhang Mingquan, head of Duanjia Town in Heishan.

Although the quarantine has been lifted, veterinarians will continue to monitor affected areas, said Zhou.

Liaoning mobilized more than 20,000 veterinarians to help farmers vaccinate more than 300 million poultry and medical workers were assigned to take all villagers' daily temperatures and disinfect all bird flu-hit spots, said Zhou.

Yesterday, Jinzhou police detained a suspect in Hohhot, capital of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, in connection with the production of fake bird flu vaccines, of which over 6,000 of five kinds had been sold in Liaoning during the outbreaks, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Wei Xuefeng was technical controller of Jinyu Group's Inner Mongolia BioPharmaceutical Factory. Another two suspects, Li Yuhe, quality controller of the group, and Xu Xianming, the factory's financial controller, are still at large.

According to the police investigation, between January 2004 and October this year, the factory produced over 200,000 vaccines of 12 types for animal use and sold them throughout China without a license.

(Xinhua News Agency, China.org.cn December 2, 2005)