Northwest China yesterday reported an outbreak of bird flu the seventh in less than 10 days as the World Health Organization (WHO) said it would send a team to an eastern Chinese province where a woman was confirmed killed by the infection.

The latest outbreak struck a family farm in Turpan city of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and killed 11 birds on November 17.

The deaths were caused by the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday, citing test results from the National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory.

The seven outbreaks reported since November 15 make Xinjiang the most-afflicted area in the country, experts said.

Three of the outbreaks occurred in or around Urumqi, the regional capital, according to the ministry's website.

The ministry and the local government were handling the latest outbreak in accordance with emergency plans, officials said.

Veterinary workers culled 5,180 poultry within a 3-kilometre radius of the outbreak site in line with standard practice, the ministry said in a statement.

The WHO, in response to Wednesday's report that a second person had died of H5N1 in Anhui Province, yesterday said the organization would most likely send an investigation team there next week.

The WHO has already secured permission to investigate the first human death in the province a 24-year-old woman farmer in Zongyang County earlier this month.

"Now that the second case occurred, it's very likely this will be also part of the Anhui mission," Roy Wadia, a WHO spokesman, said last night.

The second human victim of bird flu in Anhui was a 35-year-old woman farmer.

Meanwhile, health authorities yesterday intensified an information campaign on prevention of human infections, using prime-time TV slots and major newspapers urging people to maintain a hygienic and healthy lifestyle; and process poultry products with caution.

The ministry has also published an updated version of Diagnosis and Treatment Guidelines for Human Infection by Avian Influenza, detailing the sources, symptoms, prevention and treatment for health workers.

In a related development, the United Nations said on Wednesday that it supports China's massive animal vaccination programme to combat bird flu, but cautioned that quality control on vaccines must be assured.

Joseph Domenech, chief veterinary officer of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, said agency officials would be among those visiting Chinese laboratories, the Associated Press reported yesterday.

In a circular issued on Wednesday, the State Council China's cabinet asked local governments to support and supervise designated vaccine producers, and strike hard at those manufacturing fakes.

In Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, where water supply has been cut off since midnight Tuesday, production of vaccines has not been affected, said Han Biao, an executive with the First Biological Products Plant of the Harbin Pharmaceuticals Group.

The plant, one of the nine designated vaccine producers in China, produces 60 percent of doses used in the country, Xinhua News Agency reported.

(China Daily November 25, 2005)