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Bird Flu is Suspected in New Death in China

Posted on: Tuesday, 26 February 2008, 00:00 CST

Health authorities tightened surveillance measures against avian influenza here Monday following the fourth death in mainland China suspected to have been caused by the virus since late last year.

Hospitals will be required to step up monitoring and reporting of patients with symptoms of pneumonia over a four-week period from Tuesday amid concerns of a renewed outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus.

A 44-year-old woman died Monday in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong from an infection suspected to have been bird flu, Chinese and Hong Kong health officials said. A test by the Center for Disease Prevention and Control in Guangdong found the woman to have been infected with the virus, but the result had yet to be confirmed by the Health Ministry in Beijing.

Her death follows several confirmed cases of bird flu infection since December. A 24-year-old man from the eastern province of Jiangsu died on Dec. 2. He passed the virus to his 52-year-old father, who later recovered. In the latest cases, a 22-year-old man from central Hunan Province died on Jan. 24, and a 41-year-old man from the southern region of Guangxi died on Feb. 20.

Hans Troedsson, the World Health Organization representative in China, said there was only a "preliminary" report on the Guangdong case.

But since mid-December, health and agriculture authorities in Hong Kong have been on heightened alert for cases of bird flu in humans and poultry. They have advised airlines and the travel industry to distribute information to travelers going to and from Jiangsu.

In a statement announcing additional measures Monday, the health authorities said they had alerted "frontline staff of hospitals and clinics to step up all infection control measures and maintain vigilance."

Evidence of a resurgence of the bird flu virus causes jitters in Hong Kong, where the economy was battered by an epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, in 2003.

Since late 2003, the H5N1 virus strain has been widespread in poultry populations in Asia and parts of Europe and has led to the culling of tens of millions of birds. China has the biggest domestic poultry population in the world, with many of the birds kept by households.

The World Health Organization has reported 232 deaths worldwide in the past four years, 29 of them in China.

Almost all the reported cases have been as a result of close contact between humans and infected birds. But there are fears that as the number of cases in people increases, so will the risk of the virus mutating into a form that is easily transmissible.

Health officials in Hong Kong said the Guangdong woman who died Monday appeared to have contracted the illness from poultry she kept near her home.

"This lady kept some chickens in her backyard, and they became sick and died during the incubation period of her illness. She also ate some of the chickens herself," Thomas Tsang, the controller of Hong Kong's Center for Health Protection, told Reuters.

Tsang said anyone in Hong Kong who has "signs of pneumonia and has visited Guangdong in the past six months" will be tested for the virus.

Source: International Herald Tribune

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