China's top health official has ordered stronger measures in order to prevent the spread of bird flu, as the country announced its third fatality from the H5N1 virus in a month. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) said the cases are a perfectly normal occurrence during colder months.

According to Chinese Health Minister Chen Zhu, health departments across the nation must pay great attention to stepping up efforts to stop the disease before it sickens more people, especially at the peak of the Lunar New Year travel rush, when millions of people make their way home to rural areas.

The state media has recently announced the death of a 16-year-old student in Hunan province in central Chin. The boy, Wu, had been in critical condition and died on Tuesday morning. That's why health officials need to be fully aware of the risk and harm associated with bird flu, increase monitoring, strengthen clinical diagnoses and treatment and report outbreaks in a timely manner.

The boy fell ill on January 8 in his hometown and he was transferred to a hospital in Huaihua on January 16, when his condition worsened. According to some sources, he had contact with dead poultry. The other two bird flu deaths were a 27-year-old woman in Shandong province in the country's east, who died on Saturday, and a 19-year-old woman who died in Beijing on January 5.

Anyway, it looks like these cases represent a perfectly predictable event, as the virus always starts to get active this time of year. According to data from the WHO, bird flu has killed 249 people worldwide since 2003. In china, a total of 34 infections have been reported. Even if the disease is hard for humans to catch, scientists have warned that if outbreaks among poultry are not controlled, the virus may mutate into a form more easily passed between people, potentially hosting a pandemic.

As recommendations, the Health Ministry said the public should decrease contact with poultry, not touch or eat poultry that died from disease, properly cook their meat and eggs, observe good personal hygiene and go to the doctor for early detection and treatment if they have flu-like symptoms after being in contact with poultry.

In related news, Indian authorities confirmed an outbreak of bird flu in the north-eastern Sikkim state, and a federal Health Ministry statement said local authorities formally notified all agencies concerned about an outbreak. A rapid response-team reached the Sikkim capital Gangtok and was assisting state health authorities in containment measures. India has so far seen four major outbreaks of bird flu not yet reported any cases of human infections with the H5N1 virus.