China confirms three human cases of bird flu

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Ministry of Health on Wednesday
confirmed the country’s first-ever human cases of bird flu,
reporting two in the central province of Hunan and one in
eastern Anhui, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The agency’s brief dispatch gave no further details. China
has been trying to contain a series of outbreaks of the deadly
H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus among poultry across the
country in the past month.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Health Ministry said it had not
reached a final conclusion regarding the possible detection of
bird flu antibodies in a 9-year-old boy from Hunan province.

The boy and his 12-year-old sister fell ill last month and
were treated for pneumonia symptoms. The boy was discharged
from hospital last weekend but his sister died.

Xinhua did not say whether the boy and girl were the
confirmed bird flu victims.

It also did not identify the person infected in Anhui,
where an outbreak of avian influenza among poultry was reported
on Monday, and did not elaborate on the condition of any of the
three cases.

Human cases of bird flu have killed more than 60 people in
Asia since 2003, mainly in Vietnam and Thailand.

So far the H5N1 strain has not shown it can spread easily
among people, but scientists fear it may mutate into a form
that can do so and spark a global pandemic.