• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

China Reports Bird Flu Outbreak, New Human Case

Posted on: Wednesday, 8 February 2006, 12:20 CST

By Lindsay Beck and Jerker Hellstrom

BEIJING/SHANGHAI -- China reported a fresh outbreak of bird flu on a chicken farm in the northern province of Shanxi on Wednesday and also said another person was being treated for the virus in the east of the country.

The latest bird flu patient brought the number of the country's confirmed cases in humans to 11, the Xinhua news agency said. Seven people are known to have died from the virus in China.

The victim, a 26-year-old woman from eastern China's Fujian province, was in a stable condition, Xinhua said, citing a report from the Ministry of Health.

China said the outbreak in poultry in the north was now under control.

By Friday, 15,000 chickens in Yijing township, part of the coal-mining city of Yangquan, had died, the ministry said in a report on its Web site. They were confirmed to have the H5N1 strain of avian flu on Tuesday.

Teams from the Agriculture Ministry had been sent to Yijing, where more than 187,000 chickens were culled, and the outbreak was brought under control, it said.

Scientists fear H5N1, which has killed at least 88 people in seven countries, since it re-emerged in late 2003, could mutate into a form that passes easily from person to person, sparking a pandemic.

Veterinarian departments had not detected any bird flu outbreak in animals in the area where the sick woman lives, Xinhua said.

There was no information yet on whether there were any suspected human cases from the Shanxi outbreak, said the World Health Organisation's Julie Hall, who oversees the WHO's fight against bird flu in China.

She said the WHO was in touch with China's Ministry of Health on tracing any people who might have fallen ill after contact with sick chickens in the area.

KEY BATTLEGROUND

With more poultry than anywhere else in the world, China is seen as a key battleground in fighting the disease.

It had more than 30 poultry outbreaks last year. Chinese officials have admitted that its vast size and lack of trained personnel at the local level meant there could be more cases going undetected.

A six-year-old boy who fell ill with bird flu in the central province of Hunan was gaining weight and would soon be released from hospital, the Beijing Youth Daily reported on Wednesday.

The WHO said it had not had any formal notification on the boy's condition.

But Hong Kong, which is also struggling to prevent the spread of the disease, put a 20-month-old boy into isolation on Tuesday and ordered influenza tests after he was admitted with a fever and a cough.

Preliminary tests on the baby were negative for H5N1, a health department spokesman said.

Hong Kong announced a new suspected case of bird flu on Tuesday, after preliminary tests on a dead chicken turned up positive. It urged anyone who felt sick after coming into contact with chickens in the area to seek immediate medical advice.

On Tuesday, Hong Kong also passed emergency legislation banning backyard poultry farming to try to tighten controls and curb the spread of the disease.

(Additional reporting by John Ruwitch in Hong Kong and Lucy Hornby in Shanghai)

Source: REUTERS

More News in this Category