|
Human bird flu cases confirmed
16/11/2005 17:13 - (SA)
Beijing - China has reported its first three confirmed human cases of bird flu - two of them fatalities - as the government races to vaccinate billions of chickens, ducks and other poultry in a massive effort to stop the spread of the virus.
The Chinese health ministry confirmed two human cases on Wednesday. One in the Hunan province in central China, the other in Anhui province in the east.
According to the official Xinhua news agency, both provinces have had outbreaks in poultry in the past month.
"The fatalities are a 12-year-old girl in Hunan, and a 24-year-old female poultry worker in Anhui," said Roy Wadia, a World Health Organisation spokesperson in Beijing.
He said the third case is the girl's nine-year-old brother. He has recovered.
Initial reports said the girl, her brother, and a schoolteacher who fell ill at the same time, were negative for the virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu.
Flu has potential to spread in China
However, the government re-opened the investigation and asked the WHO for help.
Wadia said China recorded the girl as a bird flu death but WHO couldn't reach a conclusion because her body was cremated.
Chinese investigators decided based on her shared background with her brother and the circumstances of her illness.
Experts are worried about the potential for bird flu to spread and mutate in China because of its vast poultry flocks and their close contact with people.
It also is a major migration route for wild fowl.
China has reported 11 outbreaks in chickens and ducks in areas throughout the country over the past month, prompting authorities to cull millions of birds in an effort to contain the virus.
The Chinese government did not previously disclosed suspected human cases in Anhui. An outbreak on October 20 in the city of Tiancheng, Anhui, killed about 550 birds.
According to Wadia, the infected poultry worker did not live near the site of that outbreak. However, he did say birds had died in her village in what might have been an unreported case of the disease.
Fourteen billion birds to be vaccinated
"She apparently had close contact with sick birds," said Wadia. "She died in a hospital. She was therefore tested adequately."
The Chinese government announced on Tuesday that it would vaccinate all China's 14 billion farm birds.
Chinese officials say that they have already vaccinated 320 million farm birds in the Liaoning province in the northeast. Four outbreaks have been reported in the province.
On Wednesday, China's cabinet discussed putting into law regulations on bird flu prevention, epidemic monitoring and emergency contingency plans.
- AP
|
News
