It was devastating for Qin Zhijun as he lost all his chickens due to bird flu. He reported the occurrence and eleven and a half hours later his entire bird flock was destroyed- seven thousand birds in all. The most surprising outcome of the incident is that the national government has called in press persons from the world to report of the incident in their publications and channels in contrast to the normally secretive attitude of the Chinese government to these issues.

Unlike handling it the way they handled the SARS scare, they reacted fast and handled the process with transparency. Experts say the Chinese government had learnt its lesson well. On Thursday there were two new reports of the flu only a day before the country acknowledged the flus prevalence. The two victims were a boy of nine years and a woman of twenty four. The latter passed away due to infection while the boy survived.

The attitude of the government to such health issues in the past was very secretive. People felt left in the lurch about these issues. The government drew flak from the world due to this outlook. They changed under the pressure. The scale of action taken by the government after its change of attitude has been quite radical with comparison to their callousness in handling the situation. While chickens are being culled by the million, live poultry sales have been banned. Quarantining is in full force.

The ruling party spokesperson said that their response was immediate. He spoke of restricting measures to prevent the situation from getting any worse. Despite all the rising hopes that the government is doing its best, there have not been any sure signs at all. They have told the villagers that they are doing their part to control the virus from spreading. The infected human toll in Asia so far is 126 people out of whom sixty three are dead.