China reports sixth human death from bird flu

A 35-year-old Chinese woman who handled sick and dying chickens has died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu, becoming the mainland’s sixth human fatality, the government and the World Health Organisation said today.

The woman fell ill on January 3 and died on January 11, said Roy Wadia, a WHO spokesman in Beijing. She was mainland China’s ninth reported human case of bird flu.

The woman, identified only by the surname Wei, lived in the village of Zhoujiaxiang on the outskirts of Jiangyang, a city in the southwestern province of Sichuan, the Health Ministry said.

The woman lived in a residential compound of eight families where chickens began dying in late December, according to Wadia. He said she was asked to kill dying birds.

“She was definitely in close contact with sick or dead chickens that did have H5N1,” Wadia said. He said tests after her death confirmed she had the virus.

People who had close contact with her were under medical observation but none showed flu symptoms, said a ministry statement carried by the official Xinhua News Agency.

China has suffered 28 outbreaks of bird flu in chickens, ducks and other domesticated birds since October 19.

Most human infections have been traced to contact with sick birds and Chinese health officials say more are inevitable if the country does not curb outbreaks in poultry.

Bird flu has killed at least 79 people in Asia and Turkey since 2003.

Experts worry that the virus could mutate into a form that would be easily transmitted between people, sparking a global flu pandemic that could kill millions.

The Chinese government says it has destroyed 22.5 million birds over the past year in order to contain repeated bird flu outbreaks in poultry in areas throughout the country.

China’s other human deaths were reported in the Guangxi region in the south and in the provinces of Jiangxi and Anhui in the east and Fujian in the southeast.

In addition, Chinese investigators believe a 12-year-old girl who died in the southern province of Hunan had the virus, though the WHO says it cannot confirm that she died of bird flu.