China on Wednesday reported its first three confirmed human cases of bird flu.
The health ministry confirmed two cases in Hunan province in central China and one in Anhui province in the east, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The announcement didn’t give any details. But Chinese and World Health Organisation (WHO) experts had been studying the case of a 12-year-old girl who died in Hunan and her brother, both of whom fell ill after their village suffered a bird-flu outbreak in poultry. The boy has since recovered.
China has reported 11 outbreaks in chickens and ducks over the past month in areas throughout the country, prompting authorities to destroy millions of birds in an effort to contain the virus.
The government hadn’t previously disclosed that there were any suspected human cases in Anhui, where an outbreak on October 20 in the city of Tiancheng killed about 550 birds.
In Hunan, Chinese officials initially said the girl, her brother and a schoolteacher who all fell ill had tested negative for bird flu. But the government reopened the investigation and asked the WHO for help.
A team of WHO experts travelled to Hunan this week to help Chinese specialists review the three cases.
Experts also are testing a poultry worker who fell ill in the north-eastern province of Liaoning, which has suffered four outbreaks.
Meanwhile, Germany wants the ban on live bird imports into the European Union to be extended into next year, a government minister said on Wednesday.
”Thanks to the embargo, the trade of birds has almost been eradicated. And with it the door has been shut on a possible entry route for the classic bird-flu virus,” said consumer-affairs ministry state secretary Alexander Mueller.
”In view of reports from South-East Asia of new outbreaks, the trade in birds should be further restricted,” he said.
Health experts were meeting in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss extending the ban on importing live birds, which was introduced in late October and is currently due to expire at the end of this month, to the European bloc. — Sapa-AFP, Sapa-AP