Fifth human case of bird flu reported in China

A FARMER in north-east China has tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu, the government said yesterday, making her the country’s fifth confirmed human case of the disease.

New cases of bird flu have also been reported in Romania and the Ukraine.

In China, the 31-year-old woman, surnamed Liu, was taken ill on October 30 in Heishan County in Liaoning province, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

She suffered a fever and pneumonia-like symptoms and developed breathing problems after she was admitted to hospital.

She was discharged on November 29 after “her condition slowly became better through all-out efforts to save her”, Xinhua said.

Two farmers in the eastern province of Anhui died of the disease last month, while a nine-year-old boy in China’s central Hunan province recovered. A 10-year-old girl in southern Guangxi province was also in hospital and has undergone emergency treatment.

The virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed at least 69 people in Asia since 2003, mostly through contact with infected birds.

Experts have warned that the virus could mutate and become more easily transmitted between people, sparking a global pandemic that could kill millions.

Authorities in Romania have found new cases of an H5 subtype of bird flu in domestic fowl in an eastern village. The village of Zavoaia was already included in a surveillance area set up after the virus was detected in four nearby villages, said a spokeswoman for the agriculture ministry.

The virus already has been confirmed in three villages in the nearby Danube delta, a wetland reservation where hundreds of thousands of migratory birds have arrived from Russia.