Health officials take on 'chicken lunch' to allay panic

Home>>China

Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Health officials take on 'chicken lunch' to allay panic

Eating chicken has never before taken courage and confidence, but Minister of Agriculture Du Qinglin displayed both Monday when he had a lunch laden with poultry products in Beijing.

DISCUSSION

CHINESE

SEND TO FRIEND

Well-cooked chicken is safe

Eating chicken has never before taken courage and confidence, but Minister of Agriculture Du Qinglin displayed both Monday when he had a lunch laden with poultry products in Beijing.

"Chicken has been always my favourite, so I'd like to eat more today,'' Du said at a canteen within the ministry compound, which also houses a national command headquarters to battle the bird flu epidemic.

Outside Beijing, suspected bird flu cases have been spotted in four new Chinese regions, said Jia Youling, a ministry spokesman on bird flu prevention and control.

New cases have been detected in Jinnan A district of North China's Tianjin Municipality, Macheng of Central China's Hubei province, Anning of Southwestern Yunnan Province and Huayin of northwestern Shaanxi Province.

Well-cooked chicken is safe (2)

But that wasn't about to stop Minister Du dining on delictable "kung-pao chicken'' (chicken stir-fried with dry chilis and peanuts), eggs and chicken wings.

Vice-Minister Zhang Baowen, who dined with Du Monday, said although parts of China have avian flu, poultry products available in markets are all from regions untainted by infection.

"Even products from those unaffected areas have experienced stringent checks and quarantines before shipping,'' said Zhang. "Therefore they are safe for consumers.''

Du and his colleagues are not the only officials found in a gastronomic show of confidence aimed to boosting consumers' appetite for dining on fowl. Vice-Minister of Health Gao Qiang was also shown eating chicken before the cameras Monday.

Biting into a well-braised drumstick, Gao said he hadn't had chicken or other meat like beef, pork and mutton for many years "for the sake of animal welfare".

By breaking his personal rules, Gao said he wished to send a message to the public that it was safe to eat chicken and eggs so long as they were cooked properly and passed quarantine checks.

Wang Jianrong, deputy director of the Health Ministry's department of health law and supervision, said poultry meat was regularly served at the ministry's dining hall, even after the bird flu outbreak started. Wang said he liked to eat chicken and never had any concerns. His confidence partly came from his work.

Since China reported its first case of avian influenza on the mainland on Jan. 27, the government has tightened quality and quarantine checks of live poultry and poultry meat sales, but the reluctance to eat poultry meat has spread quickly among the public.

KFC, the popular fast food chain specializing in fried chicken, admitted that even though its 1,000 outlets in China have been operating normally, some had fewer customers.

China has a huge commercial poultry flock and its egg production accounted for 40 percent of the world total. To minimize the effects of bird flu on the country's poultry industry and daily life, the government is intensifying information campaigns to allay public fears.

Actually, unlike the devastating SARS (severe acute aspiratory syndrome), which made people turn pale even at the mention of the malady, the bird flu has failed to cause much panic among the public. That's even though sales of chicken and eggs have somewhat dropped in major supermarkets, according to store managers.

Monday's confidence-building efforts and publicity on bird flu prevention finds government and other scientific agencies hoping to draw people back to chicken delicacies, experts said.

In Beijing, households have each gotten pamphlets detailing procedures of bird flu prevention, and of cooking and eating chicken and eggs safely.

Thanks to the publicity -- and partly due to the blockade of products from bird flu-infected regions, the Beijing Chai Tai Animal Husbandry Company, a major supplier of chicken products in the capital, has seen its sales of eggs increase by 10 percent to up to 3 tons each day, according to a company executive Wang Xincheng.

Globally, 41 countries and regions had slapped a ban on or restricted import of Chinese poultry products by last Thursday. South Korea, Singapore and Japan have resumed import of parts of Chinese poultry products, according to sources with China's quarantine authorities.

While urging Chinese enterprises to honestly abide by quarantine policies, China is discussing with its poultry importers expanding exports of safe poultry products based on the principle of "respecting science and averting risks,'' said a statement from the State General Administration for Quality Supervision and Inspection and Quarantine.

By People's Daily Online

Questions?Comments? Click here

HK government to collect dead chickens from farms

Restaurants take emergency steps against bird flu

Thai PM says cooked chicken and eggs safe

>> Full Coverage

China, Wi-Fi fight for WLAN standard ( 4 Messages)

US visa rules anger students ( 13 Messages)

Beijing to build two new Christian churches ( 4 Messages)

Australian PM appalled at attack on Chinese restaurants ( 8 Messages)

China concerned about Japan dispatching troops to Iraq: FM spokeswoman ( 3 Messages)