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China announces eighth bird flu death
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-02-11 09:39
China announced that a 20-year-old woman in the central province of Hunan had
died of bird flu, bringing the country's death toll from the virus to eight.
The victim, a farmer surnamed Long from Suining County, showed symptoms of
fever and pneumonia on January 27 after culling poultry raised in her home and
died on February 4, the health ministry said, Xinhua News Agency reported.
Tests at a local disease control centre in Hunan and in China's national
centre had shown Long to be positive for the H5N1 strain of the virus, Xinhua
said.
Those who had come in close contact with Long had been placed under medical
observation by local health authorities, the report said, adding that so far
they had shown no abnormal symptoms.
The health ministry had reported the new case to the World Health
Organisation (WHO), Xinhua said.
Long was the 12th human case of bird flu reported in China, eight of whom
have died.
China has reported 34 outbreaks of the virus in poultry since the beginning
of last year, with most occurring since October.
In the latest outbreak, reported this week, health authorities in north
China's Shanxi province placed 35 people under observation after 15,000 fowl
died of bird flu on the farm where they were working.
Experts fear the virus could mutate into a strain that could be transmitted
easily among humans, circumstances that could cause a global pandemic that could
kill millions of people.
The virus, already endemic in parts of Asia and Europe, spread to a third
continent earlier this week when cases were discovered in birds in Nigeria.
A Chinese health ministry official, speaking before the latest death was
confirmed, said earlier Friday that China had been unable to determine why most
of its human bird flu cases had occurred in areas where no poultry outbreaks had
been detected.
The health ministry this week announced China's 11th case in the southeastern
province of Fujian.
As in seven of the previous reported infections, the 26-year-old woman fell
ill in an area where the agriculture ministry had not detected the deadly virus
among poultry, according to the WHO.
In four of these cases the health ministry later found the patients had close
contacts with sick birds, although the agricultural ministry could still not
determine a bird flu outbreak.
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