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)