The streptococcus suis outbreak in Sichuan claimed four more lives yesterday, bringing the death toll to 31, but experts say the situation is now well under control.

According to a daily report from the Ministry of Health, the increase in deaths does not mean the epidemic is worsening.

Yesterday's deaths were of patients who had been hospitalized for several days, not newly diagnosed cases.

By noon yesterday, 152 people had been identified as infected with the bacteria, 27 more than reported on Wednesday.

Among the 27 new patients, only six had fallen ill yesterday, with the rest having had symptoms for several days.

In Sichuan's Ziyang where most of the infected swine and humans have been found, the epidemic is under effective control, according to a member of a team of experts sent by the Ministry of Health.

Yang Weizhong, Director of the Office of Disease Control and Emergency Response of China Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), made the remarks in Ziyang yesterday in a brief interview with journalists.

With a chart showing the epidemic in Ziyang to be in decline, Yang said he was still not sure when the epidemic would be over.

The epidemic situation seems to be very localized now, Robert Dietz, a spokesman for the World Health Organisation (WHO), was quoted as saying.

In South China's Guangdong Province, the Guangdong Yongshun Biology Pharmaceutical Factory is stepping up production of a vaccine to protect pigs against the disease, Wu Weirui, board chairman of the factory told China Daily yesterday.

A large amount of the vaccine, enough for at least 20 million pigs, will be sent to Sichuan by next Wednesday, he said.

Since the outbreak was discovered on June 24, Ziyang has done its utmost to prevent the spread of the disease, said Chen Nenggang, deputy mayor of Ziyang.

The city has issued more than 2 million posters urging farmers not to slaughter or eat sick pigs, the only ways humans can become infected.

At least 50,000 health workers and officials were sent to nearly 1.4 million farming households, to register every pig in the region, Chen said.

Ziyang also set up 39 temporary roadside quarantine stations to stop dead pigs from being transported to market, he added.

The Sichuan provincial government has designated four medical facilities in Ziyang, Neijiang, Zigong and Suining as treatment centres for farmers showing symptoms of the disease.

Although prevention work is going well, treatment is still unsatisfactory because there is no specific medicine available to treat the infection.

While confirming the effectiveness of antibiotics against streptococcus suis, Yang Weizhong had reservations over the after-effects of the large doses, currently the only option for treating the disease.

"The small number of patients released from hospital so far showed no negative after-effects," Yang said.

Wang Xingcheng, 55, is one of at least 30 patients receiving treatment at the Department of Contagious Disease in the Ziyang City No 1 People's Hospital.

According to his daughter, Wang, who has been in hospital for around a week, lost his hearing and still cannot stand up because of back pain caused by the disease.

In the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, York Chow, the SAR government's Secretary for Health, Welfare & Food, said there was no scientific evidence that pork from Sichuan was unsafe.

Accordingly, he refused to impose an import ban, saying: "The decision by the Ministry of Commerce to cease pork exports to Hong Kong is a commercial one.

"They make the decision because Hong Kong people are panicking and will not eat frozen pork from Sichuan," he told a Legislative Council panel yesterday.

In another development, Chinese scientists have completed genetic sequencing of the bacteria.

The gene sequencing test shows the bacteria has exactly the same sequence in sick pigs as in humans, said Xu Jianguo, an epidemic prevention expert with CDC.

Xu and his colleagues are carrying out further research to find biological evidence of how the disease spreads from pigs to humans.

In Beijing, nearly 200 million yuan (US$12.5 million) will be spent on building an animal disease prevention and control centre, an official with the municipal veterinary station said yesterday.

The centre will collect, analyse and deal with information concerning animal diseases, diagnose outbreaks of disease and test veterinary medicines, Xinhua said.

Source: China Daily