http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8274

Suspected human bird flu cases reported in China
13:34 07 November 2005
NewScientist.com news service
NewScientist.com staff and AFP

The Chinese health ministry says it cannot rule out bird flu as the
cause of death of a 12-year-old girl in an infected province, and has invited
the World Health Organization to investigate what could be the country's
first known human case.

The health ministry admitted in a statement that it did not know what
killed the girl and afflicted her nine-year-old brother and a 36-year-old
schoolteacher in the same province. While bird flu has killed more than
60 people in south-east Asia, China has insisted that it has had no human
infections even though there have been numerous outbreaks in birds.

"The three cases have been diagnosed as pneumonia of unknown cause but
we cannot rule out the possibility of human infection of the H5N1 avian
influenza," the ministry said.

The girl, He Yin, died in late October. The brother and the teacher
both recovered. All three cases were in Xiangtan county in the central
province of Hunan, where one of China's four most recent outbreaks of bird flu
occurred. According to the health ministry, the girl and her brother
fell ill after coming into close contact with poultry that died. Wantang
village, where they lived, was hit by the bird flu virus.

The teacher, who lived in a different part of the county, had injured
his hand while cutting raw chicken meat before falling ill, the ministry
said. A total of 192 people have been found to have had contact with the three
patients and the dead poultry in Wantang village. So far all of them,
except for one with acute bronchitis, was in normal health, the ministry said.

The WHO has pressed the Chinese government for more data on the dead
girl, especially on the samples taken and the tests conducted. The health
ministry said initial tests for bird flu were negative.

"Significant and symbolic"
WHO spokesman Roy Wadia said China's reporting of the cases is a "very
encouraging" sign. "If it's confirmed [as H5N1 bird flu], it will
certainly be significant but not surprising," he said. "But it would be a
symbolic step. It shows that China is no different from any other country when
it comes to bird flu."

The Chinese government mobilised its armed forces on Sunday to carry
out a mass cull of six million poultry in Heishan county in the north-eastern
province of Liaoning, where the country's fourth recent bird flu
outbreak was reported on Friday, killing nearly 9000 chickens.

Covered head to toe in hooded army outfits and latex gloves, soldiers
from were shown by state media grabbing chickens by the neck from rows of
cages in the farms and stuffing them into bags to be burned later.

Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu has ordered greater efforts to prevent
the spread of the disease. "We should concretely enhance our sense of
urgency and responsibility in the prevention and control of the highly
pathogenic bird flu," he said, according the government's Xinhua news agency. He
said monitoring and alert systems needed to be strengthened and contingency
plans improved.

The authorities have ordered the closure of the 168 live poultry
markets in Beijing. Scientists have found that such markets play a major role in
the spread of the virus. It is not clear whether live markets elsewhere in
China will close.

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