A 16-year-old boy has died of bird flu in central China, becoming the third victim in China in two weeks to die to the disease, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
The boy, named Wu, had fallen ill in Guizhou on January 8 and was transferred to a hospital in the neighbouring province of Hunan, health officials said. The victim had contact with dead poultry, according to reports.
Those who came in close contact with the boy haven’t shown any signs of the infection.
“The situation urges us to further strengthen prevention and supervision over the epidemic, and ensure early detection and diagnosis when new cases are found,” Shu Yuelong, vice director of virus control and prevention with the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention, was quoted as saying.
The two other bird flu deaths were a young woman in Shandong province in the country’s east a 19-year old woman who died in Beijing. The woman died from the H5N1 virus after buying and cleaning ducks in a market in a neighbouring province.
All these cases of deaths associated with bird flu came at a worrisome time for authorities as tens of millions of people travel from cities and rural hometowns for the Chinese New Year. Due to the current conditions, authorities were compelled to implement stronger and more effective prevention and supervision programs.
Experts fear the virus may cause more than one influenza pandemic as the virus is expected to continue mutating in birds regardless of whether humans develop immunity to a future pandemic strain. Studies indicate that these viruses continue to evolve, with changes in their internal gene aspects.
The situation is difficult, as more than 70 percent of China’s bird flu cases occur in cold weather, when the virus is more active.
China’s agriculture ministry is intensifying its efforts to reduce the spread of H5N1 in poultry, according to Bloomberg News. The Chinese Agriculture Ministry considers that tighter monitoring of the disease outbreak is necessary. “With the Lunar New Year approaching, the volume of trade of live poultry is growing, and the risk of the emergence and spread of an epidemic is increasing,” the Ministry added.
Lunar New Year feasts often include dishes made from freshly slaughtered chicken and duck feature, which may bring a greater risk of exposure to infected birds when people buy poultry or when they are transported from one place to another.
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. In 1997, the H5N1 strain adapted to humans and killed six people – 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.
