# 1713
For the fourth time this year, China is reporting an outbreak of bird flu in poultry in that nation, this time in Guizhou province.
Guizhou is bordered on the east by Hunan Province, where a 22-year-old man died from H5N1 last month, and on the south by Guangxi, where earlier this month China reported the death of a 41-year-old man from the virus.
Curiously, none of these 4 reported outbreaks in poultry have occurred in the same provinces as the three reported human cases this year. Two were in Tibet, one was in Xinjiang province, and this one is in Guizhou.
China reports bird flu outbreak in poultry in SW province
www.chinaview.cn
2008-02-25 21:58:02
BEIJING, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- An outbreak of bird flu in poultry has been reported in China's southwestern mountainous province of Guizhou, the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) said Monday.
The National Bird Flu Reference Laboratory confirmed the case, which occurred in Zheng'an County, Zunyi City on Feb. 17, was caused by the highly pathogenic H5N1 subtype of the avian influenza virus, the MOA said.
The disease, which killed 3,993 birds, was brought under effective control after the culling of another 238,364, it added.
It is China's fourth bird flu outbreak in poultry this year, with two in southwestern Tibet Autonomous Region and one in northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
A 44-year-old woman who was suspected of having bird flu died in hospital on Monday in the southern province of Guangdong, the provincial health department confirmed.
China has recorded a total of 29 human bird flu cases, of which 19 were fatal, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
On Feb. 18, the Ministry of Health confirmed that a 22-year-old man surnamed Li, in the central province of Hunan, tested positive for H5N1. He died on Jan. 16.
On Feb. 20, a 41-year-old man surnamed Liang, who had tested positive for H5N1, died in Nanning, capital of southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
The bird flu virus is most commonly passed from sick poultry to humans through close contact. From 2003 to Feb. 15, 2008, WHO data indicated that 227 people had died in 361 confirmed human cases of H5N1.
