China reports two more bird flu outbreaks
By David Ljunggren and Randall Palmer
The Star, 29 Nov 2005

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has confirmed two new outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in poultry in the northwestern region of Xinjiang and in central Hunan province. 

China has culled more than 20 million birds this year to contain the spread of avian influenza and has reported 24 outbreaks since mid-October in nine regions and provinces from the far southwest to the frigid northeast. 

Three people have been confirmed infected with the H5N1 avian flu virus, two of whom have died. 

The Ministry of Agriculture said on its Web site that 288 birds that died last week in Shanshan country in Xinjiang and 402 poultry that died in Yongzhou earlier this month were confirmed to have H5N1. 

The two provinces had earlier outbreaks of bird flu. 

Local veterinary departments have culled more than 65,000 poultry within three kilometres (two miles) of the affected areas, it said. 

The virus is known to have infected 133 people in Asia since late 2003, killing 68 of them. It remains hard for people to catch but the fear is that it could mutate into a form that could be passed easily from person to person, sparking a global pandemic in which millions could die. 

A team from the World Health Organisation began an investigation on Monday into two human bird flu cases in China's eastern province of Anhui, Xinhua news agency reported. 

The WHO team, along with officials from China's Health Ministry and its Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, will spend three days in the Anhui counties of Xiuning and Zongyang, where two female poultry workers fell ill and died of bird flu earlier this month. 

China has had one other confirmed human case, in a nine-year-old boy who survived infection, while his dead sister is a suspected case. 

Lab tests from China's human bird flu cases show the virus has mutated into a form different from that found in human cases in Vietnam, the official Xinhua news agency reported, quoting Ministry of Health spokesman Mao Qun'an. 

Mao said the virus has mutated "to a certain degree" but added that it was not in a form that could pass easily from person to person.