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 Flocks are particularly vulnerable to avian flu during the drier
winter months, following which outbreaks usually die down.
The outbreak in Hexian, a city of about 500,000 people in the
province of Anhui, was caused by the H5N6 strain of virus, and has
been brought under control, the ministry said on its website.
The local government culled 30,196 fowl after the outbreak, which
infected 28,650 broiler chickens and killed 15,066 of the birds, it
added.
The last bird flu outbreak, also of the H5N6 strain of the virus,
killed 9,752 birds on quail farms in the southwestern province of
Guizhou, the ministry said in August.
South Korea and Japan battled major outbreaks during the winter.
The H7N9 strain of the virus has caused at least 281 deaths since
October in China, with two cases of human infection last month,
authorities said last week.
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Live poultry markets were shut down in many provinces following the
human infections.
China's last major bird flu outbreak in 2013 killed 36 people and
cost the farm sector more than $6 billion in losses.
(Reporting by Hallie Gu and Josephine Mason; Editing by Clarence
Fernandez)
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