A batch of bird flu vaccine has been exported to Kyrgyzstan via the Turgart port in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, northwest China, local sources said Friday.

The vaccine was for the H9 strain of bird flu, less dangerous than the H5N1 strain currently spreading in some Asian countries. It is the first time that bird flu vaccine was exported to foreign countries through ports in Xinjiang.

Customs sources said the vaccine was produced by a biological medicine company in Zhaoqing City of Guangdong Province, south China, and will be used in a chicken farm in Jalalabad City of Kyrgyzstan.

More than 100,000 chickens were raised in the farm, an overseas subsidiary of the Xinjiang Dacheng Poultry Company, which buys the vaccine against possible bird flu.

Outbreaks of H5N1 strain of bird flu have been found in the No.12 Agricultural Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.

(Xinhua News Agency February 13, 2004)