Live poultry market ban will be permanent
Live poultry markets will be a thing of the past for Beijing, China, with the Municipal Bureau of Agriculture stating that the city will ban live poultry markets permanently.
It is believed that the permanent bans are aimed at reducing the risk of spreading poultry diseases such as bird flu.
The live markets have been banned in Beijing since last November, when several outbreaks of bird flu were confirmed in neighboring provinces like Liaoning and Inner Mongolia.
According to the bureau, the move is part of its effort to comply with a newly-issued document by the State Council that calls for gradually moving live poultry markets away from urban areas in a renewed effort to combat bird flu.
In June 2006, an official announcement stated that the trade could be resumed as long as live poultry markets or shops were certified by veterinary inspection agencies. But according to the bureau, none of the shops have been certified yet.
Scientists from Chinese Academy of Sciences say poultry rearing and trade play a role in the spread of bird flu, and restricting the number of live poultry markets is essential to control the disease.
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