Bird flu death in China

A man has died from bird flu in southern China, the ninth death from the H5N1 virus in the country, the official Xinhua news agency reported yesterday.

The man, identified as a 32-year-old with the surname Lao, was the 15th human bird flu case in China. He died in Guangdong province, which borders Hong Kong.

In Europe, France announced a new case of H5N1 in a wild duck in the east of the country, while another test on a wild swan showed the virus had spread several hundred kilometres to the south.

The agriculture ministry said tests for H5N1 had proved positive on a wild duck found on Tuesday in the Ain region, where the first case of the deadly strain in domestic farm birds in the European Union was found last month at a turkey farm. Laboratory tests by Afssa, France's national agency for nutritional safety, also confirmed H5N1 in the wild swan found on Tuesday in the Mediterranean Bouches-du-Rhone region, the ministry said in another website statement dated Saturday.

Poland detected its first case of H5 bird flu in two swans found dead, the government said yesterday. Further tests would be needed to determine if it was the H5N1 strain.

Bird flu has killed at least 94 people in East Asia and the Middle East since late 2003. Victims contract the virus through close contact with sick poultry.

However, scientists fear the virus could mutate to spread from person to person, triggering a global pandemic.

Mr Lao had symptoms of fever and pneumonia on February 22 and died on Thursday, Xinhua said. The symptoms appeared after Mr Lao made several visits to an agricultural market where he spent a long time near "a live poultry slaughtering site", Xinhua said.

"The victim has been confirmed to be infected with bird flu," Xinhua said, adding the confirmation was in accordance with Chinese and World Health Organisation (WHO) standards.

Of the 14 previous cases in China, eight were fatal, two are under treatment and the other four have recovered.

China has reported more than 30 outbreaks of the H5N1 strain in birds across the country in the past year. None of these has been in Guangdong, but neighbouring Hong Kong has confirmed several cases, fuelling suspicions that authorities were not being truthful about the situation in Guangdong province.

Hong Kong would suspend imports of all live poultry from Guangdong for three weeks starting from today, a Hong Kong government spokesman said. Day old chicks and pet birds would also be barred from import, he said.

Almost all fresh chickens come from mainland China and more than 98 per cent of frozen poultry meat imports from January to August of last year came from China. The bird flu virus made its first known jump to humans in Hong Kong in 1997, killing six people.

Poland said two swans found dead on the banks of the River Vistula in the northern city of Torun tested positive for H5.

Bird flu has hit at least 14 new countries over the past month, spreading across Europe and reaching Egypt and West Africa, adding to fears for the poultry industry and human health.

Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz was quoted by news agency PAP yesterday as saying he would have chicken for dinner - seen as an attempt to protect the poultry industry.

Switzerland said it had found further cases of the H5 virus in wild birds, bringing the total number of cases so far to 11. Samples from four dead birds were being tested for H5N1.

Romania began culling birds as a precaution after it found new suspected bird flu cases among "fowl in two household farms" in a Danube river village yesterday, authorities said.

Polish authorities said they had informed the European Commission of the outbreak and taken precautionary measures, including establishing a high-risk zone three kilometres around the outbreak and placing restrictions on the six poultry farms and four processing plants in the region.