From the end of 2003, the Asia countries were badly hit by the HPAIV (H5N1) outbreak. As I wrote this report, bird flu already claimed 6 lives in human so far (5 in Viet Nam 1 in Thailand). China as the country with biggest poultry population (Est. 10 billion), are facing great challenge against bird flu outbreak in this very moment of ‘SARS season’.

The bird flu was first found in China in 1984. So far, papers reported that bird flu were found in some provinces in China and the subtypes of isolated viruses are H4N6,H5N1,H7,H9N2,H14N5. Though we can’t find any detailed annual reports of bird flu by the national authority of China (MOA do request the local government to report bird flu outbreak, but the information of such outbreaks are still restricted to the government officials and not open to the public). The official Website of  China Epizootiology Center (http://cec.epizoo.org) also provide no reports of bird flu in China. As it’s also impossible to send questionnaires to the veterinary sectors in China to form a standardize survey of AIV surveillance systems in every province. We decide to do a thorough research of Chinese veterinary journals to form a basic frame of the bird flu situation in China.