The deaths of two more people in China and two in Turkey have brought the global toll from bird flu to 78, the World Health Organisation said today as it urged stepped-up preparation in case the illness turns into a pandemic strain.

China reported its second confirmed human death from bird flu as it prepared to test a vaccine on people amid increasingly drastic measures to contain outbreaks of the disease in poultry, state media said today.

BIRD flu has killed at least one person in China, officials said yesterday, confirming the spread of the deadly virus to people in another large Asian country where it might prove hard to contain.

THE Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus returned to haunt China for the first time in six months as a suspected case in southern Guangdong province was upgraded to a confirmed case by senior health officials.