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Human Infection from Bird Flu not Ruled out in Hunan Cases

China said on November 6 that the possibility of human infection of bird flu in the three reported pneumonia cases in Hunan Province, including one death, could not be ruled out, a Ministry of Health spokesman said.

The spokesman said the ministry had invited World Health Organization (WHO) experts to make a joint investigation to determine the cause for the death.

Three people living in Central China's Hunan Province came down with pneumonia from unknown causes in October following an outbreak of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza among local poultry. One of the stricken, a 12-year-old girl, died. Her 9-year-old brother and a 36-year-old middle-school teacher recovered.

Since all of them were from a bird flu outbreak area and suffered from unknown kinds of pneumonia, the spokesman said the human inflection of bird flu could not be ruled out, and further laboratory tests will have to be carried out.

Such tests are now being conducted by relevant laboratories under the China Center for Disease Control, the spokesman said. Since the causes could not be quickly determined, China has invited WHO experts to work with Chinese experts on the case.

Earlier reports said the girl and her brother had tested negative for the bird flu virus.

There have been four outbreaks of bird flu in China's poultry population in the past several weeks, in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and in Anhui, Hunan and Liaoning provinces.

Since late 2003, the H5N1 strain of bird flu has ravaged poultry stocks and jumped from birds to humans. Most of the human deaths, all in Southeast Asian countries, have been linked to close contact with infected birds. But experts fear the virus could mutate into a form easily passed among humans and possibly spark a worldwide pandemic. China has pledged it will be more open in its reporting on bird flu.

China has suspended poultry and poultry product imports from 14 countries where bird flu cases were reported, a government notice said.

The import suspension was imposed on October 28, according to a notice published on a Ministry of Commerce Web site on November 1.

The 14 countries are Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Japan, North Korea, Romania, Croatia, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Mongolia, Turkey, Russia and Sweden, according to the notice jointly issued by the Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Agriculture, the General Administration of Customs and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

The notice says the import suspension is meant to prevent spread of infectious diseases in animals such as bird flu, to protect the health of the people and guarantee the safety of China's animal husbandry.