China should establish an official veterinarian system as soon as possible to increase its capability in animal epidemic prevention and control, Wang Jinyou, a deputy to the 10th National People's Congress (NPC) said.

"I'm going to submit a proposal for a resolution on handling farm produce emergencies at the second session of the 10th NPC held in Beijing in early March," said Wang, who is also president of the poultry branch of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Foodstuffs, Native Produce and Animal By-products.

According to Wang, the official veterinarian system is set by the World Organization for Animal Health, which includes the authentication of veterinarians by the state and a line management of veterinarians in the country.

"Such a system of authorized veterinarians can play an effective role in the reporting and control of animal epidemics," said Wang on Tuesday.

"As an experiment, Zhucheng, the largest poultry production base in China, has instituted the system, which has been viable in the control and prevention of the bird flu outbreak in China this year," noted Wang.

At the end of 2001, the Zhucheng municipal government reformed its veterinarian system, realizing the separation of supervision and service.

"We founded a municipal supervision institute of livestock and poultry epidemic prevention to supervise and administrate the epidemic prevention work," said Liu Hongtai, director of the local husbandry bureau.

"Under the institute," added Liu, "13 branches were set up and veterinarians sent by the institute stationed at poultry farms and processing factories to supervise the whole production process."

According to Liu, before the outbreak of bird flu in China, Zhucheng city had established a complete check and test system equipped with sophisticated test instruments and technology, and a spot check of five chickens from 1,000 has been carried out, with bird flu virus as the check emphasis.

"Cases of the highly infectious avian flu in China reported so far were mainly discovered at individual farms, the production of which is usually small-scale and far from standardized, but seldom at large standardized farms," said Wang Jinyou.

Wang also suggested increasing the percentage of cooked food in the whole output of poultry produce as it will not only make the poultry food safer and healthier as the bird flu virus can be killed after the long-time high-temperature cooking over 70 Celsius, but also increase the additional value of the produce.

As a city under Weifang, which is famed for its widespread kite flying activities, Zhucheng is popular for its animal husbandry industry, as its annual poultry raising amount is approximately 100 million heads and 85 million heads are produced each year. And its annual export of poultry goods is 40,000 tons, or 10 percent of the country's gross export amount.

"The outbreak of the avian flu in China has brought about not only difficulties for the country's poultry industry, but also good opportunities, as it will impel the industry to reform its outdated production mode and to learn advanced production techniques and systems in the world," said Wang.

(Xinhua News Agency February 19, 2004)