No second "abnormal case" was detected in Guangzhou, which
reported China's latest suspected death of bird flu on Thursday,
Minister of Health Gao Qiang said today.
Some samples of the victim, a 32-year-old local resident, had
been sent to Beijing for a double-check by the Chinese Center for
Disease Control and Prevention (China
CDC), Gao said.
The process may take some time, the minister said on the
sidelines of the Fourth
Session of the National People's Congress (NPC),
which opened Sunday morning in Beijing.
He also said there was no human-to-human communication of bird
flu in China.
Close monitoring is being conducted on a local market where the
man had visited, and on people who had direct contact with fowls,
Gao said.
"You can rest assured that no second abnormality has been
found," the minister told reporters.
The victim, surnamed Mao, started to develop symptoms of fever
and pneumonia on February 22. He had been long staying at a nearby
live poultry slaughtering site when he carried out a market survey,
according to an official statement.
"We've informed Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions as well as
some countries of the situation," Gao said.
"After all, bird flu is not something just occurred, and you
should have a somber knowledge that avian influenza appeared in
Hong Kong well in 1997, and on the mainland in 2004."
Judging from infections in different parts of the country, the
major source of contagion is believed to have come from migratory
birds, he said.
China has so far reported 14 human cases of bird flu, with eight
of them died and the rest recovered, statistics of the Health
Ministry showed.
(China Daily March 5, 2006)