BEIJING -- A 37-year-old farmer in east China's Anhui province contracted the H5N1 strain of bird flu last month and has been cured, the Ministry of Health announced Wednesday.

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The man called Li developed symptoms of fever and pneumonia on December 10. His serum and sputum were tested for bird flu within days of his being admitted to hospital but the first tests proved negative.

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed on Monday that further tests carried out at the end of the month and early January tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain, the Ministry said.

It is the first human bird flu case reported on the Chinese mainland in the last six months.

Li was discharged from hospital on January 6 in Tunxi, Anhui Province, after making a full recovery, the ministry said.

The World Health Organization said the Chinese Ministry of Health informed it shortly after the case was confirmed and praised China for its quick response to the case.

"The Chinese Ministry of Health's handling of the Anhui case has been thorough, rigorous and timely," said Joanna Brent, a WHO spokeswoman in Beijing.

She said the ministry has undertaken routine testing at both provincial and central levels, and has undertaken a second batch of tests despite the first batch being negative.

"WHO understands that the Chinese Ministry of Health placed people who had been in close contact with the patient under medical supervision prior to the case being confirmed," she said.

Local health authorities said those who had had close contact with the patient showed no signs of disease and had been released from medical observation.

Like most human H5N1 cases in China, the Anhui case was not preceded by a poultry outbreak. At this stage it is still unclear how the farmer contracted the virus.

Brent said this suggests that strategies for monitoring H5N1 in poultry need further strengthening.

"An exclusive focus on outbreaks is no longer sufficient. All countries need to implement surveillance strategies to monitor where the virus is circulating and how it is changing."

The virus has killed 14 people in China since 2003 and 21 Chinese had contracted the virus before the new case. The last case was a 62-year-old man in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, who died last July

The WHO spokeswoman said one case in six months is no cause for alarm. "However, it is possible that there will be further cases since the virus has been seasonal in the past. But there is nothing to suggest an increased threat to humans."

China's Health Ministry said relevant information has been conveyed to health agencies in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. It said that local authorities are closely monitoring the situation.