Chinese girl dies of bird flu

China reported its 10th human bird flu death today – a nine-year-old girl in the country’s south east.

The girl died on Monday in the south-eastern coastal province of Zhejiang, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.

It did not immediately say whether she was confirmed to have the virulent H5N1 flu strain.

Officials said earlier that the girl had visited the home of relatives whose chickens died while she was there, but the cause of her infection was still under investigation.

She fell sick on February 10, and had been hospitalised in a critical condition with fever and pneumonia.

People who had close contact with the girl, identified only by the surname You, have been put under medical observation but none has shown symptoms.

The H5N1 virus has devastated poultry stocks and killed at least 95 people since 2003, mostly in Asia. Fresh outbreaks have been reported in more than a dozen countries since early February.

Most human infections have been linked to direct contact with sick poultry.

But experts have warned that the virus could mutate into a form that could be easily transmitted between people, possibly sparking a global flu pandemic that could kill millions.

Outbreaks in China’s poultry have continued despite a mass inoculation effort that the government says has vaccinated all of the country’s vast flocks of chickens, ducks and other birds.

Health officials say the virus is probably being spread by migratory wild birds, and that more human cases are inevitable if China cannot prevent outbreaks among its poultry.

A six-year-old boy who contracted the disease in December was discharged from hospital this week after doctors pronounced him cured following 44 days in isolation.