China reports H5N1 bird flu outbreak in Hunan amid coronavirus spread

While China is already rocked with an unprecedented outbreak of coronavirus starting from Wuhan, the nation has also reported an outbreak of a highly pathogenic strain of H5N1 bird flu in Hunan on February 1. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs reportedly said that the case occurred in a chicken at a farm in Shaoyang city of the southern province of Hunan which reportedly had  7,850 chickens. However, more than 4,000 have already died with bird flu. 

According to international reports, followed by the H5N1 outbreak, authorities have selectively slaughtered more than 17,000 poultry. Another virus, H5N8 had spread across eastern Europe in recent weeks due to which authorities in India had also started culling chickens and destroying eggs to contain the bird flu strain. 

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Bird flu virus can affect the economy

In an already slow-down economy, the bird flu virus can take a toll as it is already dealing with the crisis of coronavirus. According to experts at the United Nations, a bird flu outbreak in China in 2013 costed a loss of nearly $6.5 billion. Just recently, in order to provide stability to China's economy, the nation's central bank said that it will inject $173 billion to help fight the nationwide outbreak of the Coronavirus. 

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As the deadly virus claims more than 300 lives with nearly 14,000 confirmed cases in China, the People's Bank of China released a statement which said that it would launch 1.2 trillion yuan reverse purchase operation to maintain 'reasonable abundant liquidity' in the banking system.  The bank also announced another range of measures to ramp-up the monetary as well as the credit support to enterprises which are currently contributing to the battle against the 2019-nCoV including medical companies.  

According to international reports, China's economic growth last year was the slowest in the last three decades with only 6.1 per cent. Moreover, the virus outbreak could further slow down the economy if it goes on for an extended period of time.  

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