BEIJING, June 21 (Xinhuanet) -- The Ministry of Agriculture on Tuesday denied reports that the Chinese government had encouraged farmers to use amantadine, an anti-viral drug for human use, on poultry to control bird flu.

    The US-based newspaper "The Washington Post" reported on Saturday that Chinese farmers, acting with the approval and encouragement of government officials, have tried to suppress major bird flu outbreaks among chickens with an anti-viral drug meant for human, which would possibly make it ineffective for treating the deadly epidemic in humans. Other western media organizations, such as the Associated Press and Agence France Presse, also followed suit to make similar reports.

    "Those reports are totally groundless and run counter to facts," said the ministry in a press release here.

    The release said that since 2004 when a bird flu outbreak occurred in the country, the Chinese government has approved three kinds of vaccines. They could meet the demand for vaccination, and some of them were even exported.

    These vaccines are very cheap, with the highest price at less than 0.15 RMB yuan (1.9 cents) per dosage, and the lowest at 0.07 yuan (0.9 cents) per dosage.

    Currently, China provides free vaccine dosage for registered poultry breeders, and subsidizes half of the cost for voluntary vaccination for family poultry farms.

    "The poultry breeders don't need to use the anti-viral drug to prevent bird flu on chickens," said the ministry.

    Moreover, the release said that with the vaccination, chickens could be free from bird flu infection for at least 6 months, but with the anti-viral drug, they have to be injected every day.

    "The cost of using the anti-viral drug will be too high for the breeders to take," said the ministry.

    The ministry also said that safe production and management of the vaccines have contributed to China's successful control of bird flu.

    Amantadine is an anti-viral drug meant for use only in humans in China, said the release, adding that to prevent intercross drug-resistancy between humans and animals, the Chinese government has never allowed amantadine to be used in the prevention of bird flu or any other poultry diseases.

    "Actually, no human-use anti-viral drugs have been or would be allowed to be used in the prevention of animal diseases," it stressed.

    China's Ministry of Health is also concerned with the report, said a ministry official on Tuesday. The official said that the ministry would keep in close touch with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other departments in regard of this issue.

    China has no bird flu cases in humans, but two bird flu outbreaks in the country's remote west, in Qinghai Province and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region respectively, killed more than 1,000 birds this year. Enditem