BY the time news reporters entered duck-farming village of Yiyuan in Kangqiao of Nanhui District to the east of Shanghai, no ducks could be found anywhere.

The ponds were quiet with only white feathers floating on the surface or sticking to one's shoes. The only birds to be seen were sparrows, a few even flying inside the empty duck sheds. Dogs were wandering silently along the roads in this semi-rural area as if aware of the unusual emptiness in the village.

Two days after the first suspected avian flu case was found in the locality, over 300,000 chickens and ducks on farms within a 3-kilometre radius of the village were slaughtered.

And all poultry on farms three to 5 kilometres further away received compulsory immune injections.

First cases

The initial discovery was in two sheds that were home to 8,000 ducks belonging to 36-year-old poultry farmer Xu Shengwei, who has been raising ducks in Yiyuan village for 11 years.

He noticed that his ducks were eating less feed than usual and a few seemed extremely inactive last Monday week and he gave them injections of antibiotics.

"We used the same medicine on ducks as that used on people," said Xu's wife, Lou Keping, showing a package of the antibiotic.

But three days later, on January 29, he found that more than 200 ducks in the two sheds were dead.

"My legs felt weak as I went further into one of the sheds. I have never seen anything like this before," Xu recalled. "I have no idea how this could have happened."

He reported the case immediately to the local veterinary station and two vets came to the farm within half an hour to find another 200 ducks had died.

Twenty-eight blood samples from living ducks were sent away for serum tests and hours later Xu's ducks were announced as the first suspected avian flu cases discovered in Shanghai.

Emergency measures

A campaign of slaughtering began that evening which killed the rest of Xu's flock of ducks and then moved onto neighbouring farms which took the number of ducks killed to 35,000. The ducks were sent away for cremation on Thursday night.

The first group of reporters arrived at No. 360 Chuangye Lu, where the dead ducks were being collected and loaded onto trucks, but they were prevented from entering the site by workers dressed in white coats and masks.

But the next morning, local officials led reporters to the site, where disinfectant was being sprayed every few hours and 17 locals who had been in close contact with poultry were under strict medical observation. Doctors collected blood sample for examination on Saturday morning but no human infection has been found so far.

Xu and his wife even dissected a few ducks to try to learn about the deadly disease that had annihilated their flock.

"There was endermic (through the skin) bleeding, bleeding in internal organs and other symptoms on the liver and heart," Lou said, unaware of the risk she had been taking to her own health.

Xu had not given his ducks immune injections for avian flu although the village administration had informed poultry farmers about the potential danger of the disease.

"The virus has many variations," Xu argued. "Even if they take the injections, they may be infected by a variant of the virus as well."

Feed for ducks was still piled in front of Xu's house which was right next to the duck sheds. "We were told to leave it as it is until further instruction," Xu said.

"My neighbours have come near my home and have said bad things, as if I had brought the disease," Xu said. "I hope the government can give us a reasonable compensation for our loss. The pressure on my heart will be somehow relieved and my fellow villagers won't be too angry with me.

One of Xu's neighbours, He Xiaoyang, said: "We moved here to raise ducks in September from Shaoxing (in Zhejiang) and were just starting to make money." Her duck shed was only separated by a stream from Xu's farm and 15,000 of her ducks were slaughtered. "We are heart-stricken," she said. "We trust the government anyway."

Although the local government had allocated 6 million yuan (US$750,000) of public funds as compensation for the farmers in the village, none of the money has reached them yet.

"My husband is handicapped. He is blind in one eye and has very poor sight from the other," Lou said. "What can we do if we can't raise ducks?"

And in one or two years time, according to Xu, duck farming will be banned in their locality.

Roads and paths into the village are guarded by police to stop the outflow of any poultry products.

As reporters left the village, they saw a woman being stopped by police because she was carrying four chickens. "They were not from the village," she tried to tell the police. "I took them to the village from my hometown."

"It is OK to bring poultry into the village but you can't take any out," explained the policemen.

The woman had to leave in frustration - the chickens were confiscated.