Shanghai (AsiaNews/Agencies) - The recent outbreak of bird flu outbreak in China has cost about 20 billion yuan (2.4 billion euro). Poultry farmers paying the greatest price, about 40 million, affected by bans on exports and culling orders. The government, reports Shanghai Securities News, has promised to provide financial support to the most affected groups.
The latest wave of bird flu -
which is transmitted to humans through contact with live poultry but which may
have developed new forms of transmission - began in March 2013 and has cost a
total of 60 billion yuan , mainly due to the fall in prices of eggs and meat.
It
has also demanded a high price in terms of human lives: to date, China has
confirmed 110 cases of H7N9 infection - the new , mutated bird flu virus -
which has caused 22 deaths. The most
affected province is the southern Zhejiang. Although
Hong Kong has also been hit: January 29, the Territory authorities confirmed
the third flu victim: an elderly man who had just returned from Shenzhen, where
the authorities had ordered the slaughter of 22 thousand chickens to contain
the virus.
According
to the World Health Organization,
"there is still no evidence" that the virus is able to pass from
human to human. So
far, all the people who died from H7N9 had had direct contact with live and
infected poultry. In
Zhejiang , the government has also banned the sale of pigeons.