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China has 'bird flu epidemic'
24/11/2005 07:51 - (SA)
Beijing - China reported its second confirmed human death from bird flu, and its largest city, Shanghai, said it will ban sales of pet birds as part of increasingly drastic measures aimed at preventing the outbreak's spread.
China, which has the world's largest number of chickens, has called bird flu a "serious epidemic."
China's Health Ministry said on Wednesday that the latest fatality - a 35-year-old farmer identified only by her surname, Xu - died on Tuesday after developing a fever and pneumonia-like symptoms following contact with sick and dead poultry.
The woman tested positive for the H5N1 virus, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
The woman lived in Xiuning County in the eastern province of Anhui, Xinhua said. It gave no further details.
Daily outbreaks
China's first confirmed bird flu death was also a woman from Anhui.
Dick Thompson, a spokesperson in Geneva for the World Health Organisation, said China's second confirmed death - while serious - did not change the global health body's risk assessment for the country.
"As long as the virus is circulating in animals, there will also be sporadic human cases," he said. "But human cases of bird flu are really extremely rare events."
Most human cases of the H5N1 virus have been traced to contact with sick poultry, but scientists fear that the virus could mutate into a form easily passed between people, possibly triggering a global pandemic.
China's only other confirmed human bird flu case was a nine-year-old boy in the central province of Hunan, who fell ill but recovered. His 12-year-old sister was recorded as a suspected case, and later died. However, her body was cremated before tests could confirm whether she had the virus.
The H5N1 virus has resulted in the deaths of at least 67 people and more than 100 million birds in Asia since 2003.
The announcement of the latest human death came after China reported three new bird flu outbreaks in poultry - in the northwestern cities of Urumqi and Yinchuan, and in the southern province of Yunnan. A total of 2 768 birds died and nearly 175 000 were destroyed to contain the virus, it said.
Such outbreaks have been reported almost daily despite a nationwide effort to vaccinate billions of poultry.
Also Wednesday, Xinhua said China will test 100 people with a vaccine hoped to protect against H5N1. There is currently no human vaccine.
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