(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2005-11-06 18:02

China said Sunday that the possibility of human infection of bird flu in the three reported pneumonia cases in Hunan Province, including one death, could not be ruled out, a Ministry of Health spokesman said.

The spokesman said the ministry had invited the World Health Organization experts to make a joint investigation and to find out the cause for the death.

Soldiers from the Liaoning Division of the Chinese People's Armed Police Forces help cull chickens on Saturday in Northeast China's Liaoning Province, which had an outbreak of bird flu in Heishan County. More than 1 million heads of poultry were culled after the outbreak the fourth case reported in China in a month. [Xinhua]

Three people living in central China's Hunan province came down with pneumonia from unknown causes last month following an outbreak of the H5N1 strain among local poultry. One of them, a 12-year-old girl, died.

The girl, He Yin, died three days after developing a high fever on October 13. She had had "close contact with sick birds." Her 9-year-old brother was also hospitalized with similar symptoms but recovered, according to a Xinhua report.

The third victim was a 36-year-old middle school teacher who reportedly cut raw chicken while he had a minor injury on his hand and later fell ill. He was identified only by his surname, Song.

All three lived in or near Wantang, a village where 545 chickens and ducks died of bird flu last month.

Since all of them were from a bird flu outbreak area and suffered from unknown kinds of pneumonia, the spokesman said the human inflection of bird flu could not be ruled out, and further laboratory tests will have to be carried out.

Such tests are now being conducted by relevant laboratories under the China Center for Disease Control, the spokesman said. Since the causes could not be determined in a short time, China has invited WHO experts to work with Chinese experts to find the cause.

Earlier reports said the girl and her brother had tested negative for the bird flu virus.

Roy Wadia, a spokesman for the WHO in Beijing, confirmed that China had asked the organization for help last week, according to an AP report.

"This is a reiteration of how much of a public health threat bird flu really is," said Wadia. "Sometimes it takes a human case or a suspected human case to raise the alarm, to remind us that no country, whether China or anywhere else, can afford to be complacent."

Wadia said he did not think China had delayed its announcement of the suspected cases but that instead it was trying to be thorough before going public.

"I think the information they have shared with us has been shared as soon as they can corroborate it," he said

There have been four outbreaks of the bird flu among poultry in China in the past several weeks, respectively in Inner Mongolia, Anhui, Hunan and Liaoning.

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