New | China to help poultry farmers hit with 20b yuan losses over bird flu

A recent outbreak of bird flu in China has cost poultry farmers 20 billion yuan (HK$25.4 billion) and the government will implement new policies to support the industry, the Shanghai Securities News reported on Thursday.

The outbreak has affected more than 40 million farmers and triggered a fall in chicken and egg prices, the newspaper said. It quoted Zhang Zhongqiu, a senior official of China’s Ministry of Agriculture, as saying that new policies would be rolled out in due course.

Chinese authorities have confirmed a second human case of the new H10N8 strain of bird flu, contracted by a woman who is in a critical condition in a hospital in the east of the country, state news agency Xinhua reported this week.

The previous bird flu outbreak, which began last March, caused direct economic losses exceeding 60 billion yuan during the first half of last year, the Shanghai Securities News said.

In the worst-hit province of Zhejiang, three members of the same family contracted the H7N9 strain, Xinhua reported late on Tuesday.

Hong Kong on Wednesday reported its third death from H7N9 bird flu – an elderly man who had visited mainland China – a day after authorities culled 22,000 birds to curb the disease.