New Fears As Chinese Man Dies of Bird Flu

Health officials in China were yesterday investigating a man's death from bird flu in a province where no poultry outbreaks have been reported since 2004.

The development came as the World Health Organisation warned that the outbreak in poultry in recent years was unprecedented and posed a greater challenge than any previous emerging infectious disease.

The death of a 32-year-unemployed man in Guangdong, southern China, reinforces questions over whether surveillance for H5N1 is strong enough. Human cases were also identified in Turkey and Iraq before alerts about the virus in flocks.

Zhong Nanshan, director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases, was quoted in Hong Kong newspapers as saying that the latest death "may be an indication that poultry is infected but not showing symptoms. This is even more dangerous and serious because people can get infected without any warning."

Health experts are wondering whether vaccination of poultry is helping to mask the disease. British officials are refusing to place big orders for the vaccines, except as a fall-back for rare and exotic birds, believing that they do not stop birds from carrying disease. But the chief scientist, Sir David King, revealed last week that he had been watching progress in China, where vaccination of birds is most widespread, because of hopes that vaccines being developed there are easier to administer and more effective.

In Styria, southern Austria, three cats from an animal shelter that took in H5N1 infected birds also tested positive for the disease, the second such transfer reported in Europe during the current outbreaks.