China has paid great attention to birds flu prevention and control and taken effective measures to prevent the flu from spreading.

Minister of Agriculture Du Qinglin made the remark in an exclusive interview with People's Daily during the two day International Pledging Conference on Avian and Human Pandemic Influenza in Beijing.

Du Qinglin said both the communist party central committee and the central government have taken important measures to control the bird flu. The State Council has established a national bird flu commanding department and issued an emergency provision on serious epidemic diseases.

Ministry of Agriculture also made six documents on plans and technical standards in dealing with the bird flu emergency. It completes an emergency response system, strengthens disease supervision, improves flu prediction and warning capability, established a commanding center and organized a reserved team. It further completes the working system of setting up flu testing and reporting stations and epidemic disease supervision stations in the border area.

So far, a total of 450 epidemic disease checking stations have been established nationwide. In 2005, a total of 2.92 million samples on Avian flu were tested. About 90 percent of villages all over the country has established epidemic disease observation system and there are 645 thousand observers distributing in these villages to guarantee an early discovery, early report and early control.

Another successful measure is a comprehensive prevention by uniting with many other sectors such as Ministry of Health, quality control sector, the Administration of Industry and Commerce and Ministry of Forestry.

Du Qinglin says China has also strengthened the research in quick diagnosis, test reagent and vaccines.

The prevention work not only involves in common people but involves in many experts in order to get bird flu vaccines and promote reform in veterinary system.

China's comprehensive prevention method has proven to be effective. By November 2005, the number of the epidemic disease occurrence slowed down. Among 33 cases, 32 of them have been lifted the blockade.

On international cooperation, Du Qinglin said Chinese leaders proposed to consolidate international cooperation with various countries and organizations. Ministry of Agriculture held a conference to report to the whole country and relevant international organizations about the bird flu prevention situation.

Du Qinglin said China supports global and regional bird flu control cooperation. A ministerial meeting on the issue in Asia has been held in Kunming, Yunnan Province in Southwest China and a Kunming proposal was launched to provide suggestions and comments for the prevention of bird flu.

China has also invited some international experts to visit the epidemic site and examine the prevention and control work there. Chinese experts also provided many useful virus samples for the World Health Organization.

China and the US also held joint seminars discussing the formation of animal health work team to plan bilateral cooperation in this field.

In addition, China has trained a lot of veterinarians for ASEANS nations including Vietnam, Thailand, North Korea, Mongolia and Indonesia and provided technical, financial and material assistance to these countries and provided vaccines to countries like Vietnam.

Du Qinglin says China likes to share its experience in organizational work such as setting up monitoring and supervising system.

The current conference is a good example of China's cooperation with the European Union and other countries. The EU commissioner for health and consumer protection Markos Kyprianou said the conference has been very successful.

???Over the past three years, China has accumulated a lot of experiences. The EU and China can learn from each other.??¨¤

Participants of the donors' conference also passed a Beijing Declaration, committing themselves to ensuring effective development and implementation of integrated national action plans guided by political leaders at the highest level and mobilizing all sorts of resources in their own countries to join the global fight against bird flu.

Du Qinglin says the conference is of great significance to all the participants. It is helpful for further mobilizing, integrating and coordinating international resources, and improving efficiency in resource use so that the bird flu prevention work can be improved to a higher level.

As bird flu prevention and control is a common mission for mankind, China likes to exchange its good practices with the international community. At the same time, he also calls on the international community to support the infrastructure construction in China's epidemic vaccination system at the grassroot level and improve local people's awareness in flu prevention.

Editor: Yan