Blood tests on a schoolteacher who fell ill in an area of China that suffered a bird flu outbreak show he doesn’t have the virulent H5N1 strain of the virus, a World Health Organisation official said today.

Health experts have warned that the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu appears to be entrenched in parts of Southeast Asia after a teenager in a Malaysian village hit by the virus was hospitalised with flu symptoms.

Visiting World Health Organisation experts today widened their probe of China’s SARS cases, interviewing people at the hospital where a lab technician was treated after contracting the disease while working.

THE World Health Organisation (WHO) said it was likely that a major SARS outbreak in China could be prevented because the country is well prepared to tackle a re-emergence of the disease.