China Rushes in 3m Avian Flu Vaccines

The Chinese government has rushed 3m doses of avian flu vaccine to a western province where migrating geese were found dead from the H5N1 strain of the disease, which can be fatal to humans.

Reports today said that the Chinese government was insisting every farm bird in the area must be inoculated against the disease.

The move comes after 178 bar-headed geese were found dead in a nature reserve in Qinghai province last month - the first cases of bird flu that China has reported since July last year.

The nature reserve has been sealed off from the public but health experts are fearful that migrating birds, which cross the country on routes that stretch from Siberia to New Zealand, could spread the virus to China's vast population of domesticated ducks and geese.

So far, the disease has not spread to humans or poultry in China.

Across Asia, however, the disease has spread to humans. The death toll since the outbreak in late 2003 was thought to have risen to 58 today when another fatality was reported in Vietnam. So far the H5N1 strain has killed 38 Vietnamese, 12 Thais and four Cambodians.

The fatalities were people who lived in close contact with birds and so far there has been no confirmed human-to-human infection of H5N1. Some experts have warned that millions of people could die in a pandemic from a flu virus mutated from avian form of the disease.

The World Health Organisation today repeated its call for countries in the region to step up surveillance of the virus.

The bar-headed geese were found dead in Qinghai lake, China's biggest saltwater lake. The area is home to a group of endangered birds, including black-necked cranes and wild swans.

The first 150 dead birds were found between May 4 and 6, and the other 28 on May 8, the China Daily newspaper said. A photograph in the newspaper showed a health worker in a white protective suit and mask spraying disinfectant on a truck in one village in the province.

Bar-headed geese winter in India and return to the Qinghai plateau north of Tibet in the spring to breed, according to Chinese state media. Concerned about the spread of avian flu, Malaysia said today it was banning all imports of chicken and meat products from China.

The latest victim of bird flu in Vietnam was thought to be a 46-year-old man from the northern province of Hung Yen, who died last Thursday at a Hanoi hospital after being admitted with coughing and high fever.

A provincial health official told the Reuters news agency that preliminary tests by the Hanoi-based National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology had confirmed that the man had died from avian flu.