The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the Ministry of Health earlier this week confirmed the death of a Chinese woman who had contracted the virus after gutting ducks. It was the fist bird flu death in the country in almost a year.

 

The woman, named as Huang Yanqing, died in the Chinese capital on Monday after she fell ill on December 24. She became ill after buying nine ducks at a market in Heibei province and preparing them.

 

China’s Agriculture Minister said on Thursday that it had found no bird flu cases amongst poultry in Beijing or areas surrounding the city. “After tests for the virus and an epidemiological investigation, no trace of the bird flu virus was found in these three areas,” the ministry said in a statement on its website. The Beijing municipal bureau of agriculture also issued an alert yesterday to intensify the monitoring of trade in live poultry.

 

“Only poultry certified safe by the city's animal disease control authorities will be allowed into the city,” Beijing authorities announced, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

 

The last time Hong Kong confronted with a major bird flu outbreak was back in 1997, when the virus jumped to humans, infecting 18 people and killing six of them, raising fears of a global pandemic. Nearly 1.5 million birds were slaughtered at the time – it was Hong Kong’s biggest outbreak of the bird flu. Over 300,000 in wholesale and retail and almost 1,000,000 birds in local farms were slaughtered in 2001.

 

Commonly known as the “bird flu” or “avian flu,” avian influenza is a type of influenza caused by certain viruses that have adapted to birds. The bird flu virus has mutated over the last few years, although it may take some time before it turns into a human-to-human type of virus. Flu-like cases include symptoms like fevers above 38 C, along with coughs and sore throats. Other early signs of the virus include diarrhoea, vomiting and abdominal and chest pain. The highly pathogenic Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 is causing global concern as a potential pandemic threat. Health experts fear that the co-existence of human flu viruses and avian flu viruses will provide an opportunity for genetic material to be exchanged, creating a new influenza strain that may cause fatal human infections.