China worries about outbreaks of bird flu over winter and spring
Two members of the same family are infected with the H5N1 strain of bird flu in the first case in China since June; China has the world’s biggest poultry population and millions of backyard birds, and the authorities are worried
China has warned of a “very high” possibility of outbreaks of bird flu over winter and spring as the country’s scientists hunt for the causal link between a son and a father struck by the virus, state media said yesterday. A 24-year-old man surnamed Lu from eastern Jiangsu province died on 2 December of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in the first case in China since June. Late last week, his 52-year-old father was also diagnosed with the disease, raising questions about how the man was infected. The rare case of two family members struck by the disease has drawn urgent concern from health authorities, as humans almost always contract H5N1 from infected birds. Experts fear the virus could mutate into a strain that jumps easily from person to person, enabling it to go pandemic. Chinese Health Ministry spokesman Mao Qun’an said analysis of a sample taken from the dead son indicated the bird flu virus had not mutated, but he could not exclude the possibility of human-to-human infection in this case. “The virus is still avian and has not undergone a mutation in its nature,” he told a news conference in Beijing on Monday. Mao said one of the men might nonetheless have infected the other through close contact, or they might have become infected from another source or separate sources.
China, with the world’s biggest poultry population and millions of backyard birds, is seen as crucial in the fight against bird flu. China’s agriculture ministry was “not optimistic” about winter and spring, when the virus is at its most contagious, the China Daily quoted Yin Chengjie, a vice minister of agriculture, as saying. Methods of poultry breeding, slaughter, delivery, and processing still needed “radical changes,” and prevention measures were not fully carried out in some regions, Yin said. He called on local authorities to step up immunization efforts and testing of birds at border areas and local wetlands. China has now confirmed 27 human infections of bird flu since 2003, with 17 deaths.