China reports new bird flu outbreaks

By JOE McDONALD
Associated Press

BEIJING - China reported two new bird flu outbreaks in poultry today and quarantined 116 people, while Kuwait confirmed the first known cases in the Persian Gulf, in an imported peacock and a wild flamingo.

The World Health Organization said it was sending experts to southern China to help investigate whether bird flu killed a 12-year-old girl last month.

Chinese authorities quarantined 116 people after the latest outbreaks Sunday of the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus killed 1,100 chickens in Fuxin and Jinzhou, cities in northeastern Liaoning province, the Agriculture Ministry said.

A case there two weeks ago prompted officials to destroy more than 6 million birds. China earlier warned that counterfeit vaccines were being sold in Liaoning, raising the possibility that millions of chickens, ducks and other birds, which farmers think are inoculated, might still be susceptible.

China suffers from rampant counterfeiting of food and medicines.

``Quite clearly, there's a major problem in Liaoning, and it seems from what the Chinese are saying this has to do with using shoddy, inferior or maybe fake vaccines for poultry,'' said a WHO spokesman, Peter Cordingley, in comments broadcast by Hong Kong's Cable TV.

``And what we have now, almost certainly, we think, is sick chickens who are showing no symptoms, and that is very, very bad. They are silent carriers of the virus,'' he said.

The latest outbreaks raised to six the number reported in China in the past month. It usually takes the government several days to confirm the cause of death in birds.

First Vietnamese dies of bird flu virus H3N0 after world health experts work out steps to fight H5N1

After world health experts and officials set out key steps to halt the spread of H5N1 bird flu virus at a Geneva meeting on Wednesday, a 43-year-old Vietnamese died of infection of bird flu virus H3N0 on Thursday.

Tests by Vietnam's National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology showed that specimens from the man named Vu Van Nhat from the northern city Hai Phong, who died on Nov. 2 from respiratory failure, were positive to flu type A, subtype H3N0, local newspaper Pioneer reported

Nhat was admitted to a hospital on Nov. 1 after returning home from southern Vung Tau city. During his stay in the southern city, he ate poultry meat.

The hospital suspected that the patient was infected with flu type A, subtype H5N1. However, the tests concluded that he was infected with subtype H3N0 which is less dangerous than the subtype H5N1.

The new finding surfaced after the World Health Organization (WHO) said Wednesday one more case of human infection with H5N1 virus had been confirmed in Vietnam.