Coronavirus
A man uses a body thermal scanner on a student wearing a protective mask. Image Credit: AFP

Beijing: China has reported an outbreak of deadly bird flu in Hunan Province on Sunday.

The outbreak occurred in a farm in the Shuangqing district in the province, which lies on the southern border of Hubei province, the epicentre of the rapidly spreading coronavirus.

Local authorities have culled 17,828 poultry so far.

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"The outbreak occurred in a farm in the Shuangqing district of Shaoyang City. The farm has 7,850 chickens, and 4,500 of the chickens have died from the contagion. Local authorities have culled 17,828 poultry after the outbreak," according to a statement by China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

No human cases of the Hunan H5N1 virus have been reported.

The outbreak comes at a time when Chinese authorities are scrambling to contain the spread of the coronavirus. So far, as many as 304 people have died from the virus.

China has imposed quarantine and travel restrictions, affecting the movement of 56 million people in more than a dozen cities, amid fears that the transmission rate will accelerate as hundreds of millions of Chinese travel for the Lunar New Year.

Health authorities around the world are taking action to prevent a global pandemic as the virus continues to spread, with cases reported in Australia, France, the United States and seven Asian countries besides China.

Several countries have sped up the evacuation process after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global health crisis.