The bird flu is making new victims, this time in China. The Chinese Health Ministry said on its Web site late Sunday that a second person has dies from the disease. The victim was a 27-year-old woman surnamed Zhang who lived in Jinan city of northern China’s Shandong province.

 

The woman died Saturday, two weeks after falling ill. It was the second fatality from the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, bringing the total number of reported deaths in China to 22 since 2003 when the first cases were reported.

 

Also on Saturday, state media reported that a two-year-old girl had also been diagnosed with bird flu in the neighboring province of Shanxi. She is hospitalized in critical condition in her home province of Shanxi, according to a statement released by the Shanxi provincial health bureau. About 70 people who had been in close contact with the girl were under observation, but none had shown signs of having contracted the disease, the Health Ministry said on its Web site.

 

“The ministry has already asked Shanxi and Hunan provinces to…strengthen their bird flu prevention work,” the Web site further wrote.

 

On January 5, a 19-year-old woman who lived in Chaoyang District in Beijing died after getting infected with the bird flu. It was the first case of death from bird flu since February last year in China. The woman had been handling ducks she had bought in a market, the authorities said.

 

Since 2003, the bird flu has infected 391 people in Asia, killing 247 of them, according to World Health Organization figures released in mid- December. China has the world’s biggest poultry population with hundreds of millions of backyard birds, which transforms the country in a critical spot in the fight to contain bird flu.

 

The two new victims come at a critical time for the country, as more people than ever are predisposed to contracting bird flu this time of the year because of low winter temperatures.

 

Also, “with the approach of the Lunar New Year, the trade in poultry products is increasing, and there is a growing risk of the emergence and spread of epidemics, the agriculture ministry warned.

 

The country’s Lunar New Year, or the Spring Festival, is that time of the year when families come together for a week-long holiday characterized by big meals featuring poultry and other meats. The event starts today and the authorities fear that more people could get infected with the bird flu. It is true that this kind of flu doesn’t transmit from one person to another. However, health experts are concerned that the virus may mutate into a form that is easily transmitted among human and spark an influenza pandemic that could kill millions of people worldwide.