Guangdong kills cows stricken by TB

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http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/asia/story/0,4386,201326,00.html?

 

JULY 25, 2003 FRI

 

Guangdong kills cows stricken by TB

400 animals put down and 50,000 others ordered to be

examined

 

BEIJING - China's southern province of Guangdong has

slaughtered more than 400 cows and ordered 50,000

others examined after an outbreak of bovine

tuberculosis on one of its biggest farms.

 

More than 70 per cent of the cows at the Guangzhou

Yunyan Cattle Farm, which used to produce more than

two tonnes of fresh milk daily, were killed and the

dairy was sealed on Sunday after an outbreak of

tuberculosis was found last week, the China Daily said

yesterday.

 

An official with the provincial agriculture bureau

said: 'We decided to close the dairy for 90 days. All

of its dairy products are banned from entering the

market and we must quarantine and inspect all the milk

produced in the dairy.'

 

The Guangdong provincial bureau of agriculture issued

an emergency notice on Wednesday requesting animal

quarantine and inspection offices to inspect the

entire province's milk cows for diseases, the official

said.

 

The China Daily said the order extended to other

domestic animals.

 

Bovine tuberculosis is a highly contagious lung

disease among cattle, causing abscesses and leading to

death, but it cannot be spread to humans.

 

The dairy's tuberculosis outbreak was 'an awfully bad

case', the newspaper quoted Mr Zhao Weining at the

Ministry of Agriculture as saying.

 

'Its owners put their interests before the health of

the consumers, which can never be tolerated,' he said,

without elaborating.

 

Mr Zhao said there were very few bovine tuberculosis

cases nationwide and no large-scale infection among

cattle had been found in other places, the newspaper

reported.

 

An agriculture department official said that

provincial officials inspect cattle twice annually but

will be more thorough this year because of the

tuberculosis outbreak at the Guangzhou Yunyan Cattle

Farm.

 

Any cows found to be infected will be slaughtered, he

said.

 

China has become especially vigilant against animal

diseases after the outbreak of Sars, which killed 348

people on the mainland.

 

-- Reuters, AP