Bird flu hits again killing woman, 31

Source: Xinhua 2009-1-25 NEWSPAPER EDITION

A 31-year-old woman has died of bird flu in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, becoming the fourth death from the disease in the country so far this year, the local health department said yesterday.

The woman, a resident in the regional capital Urumqi, died at 4:40am on Friday. She had been to a poultry market before she fell ill on January 10, said Wang Xiaoyan, deputy director of the regional health department.

She was confirmed yesterday to have been infected with the H5N1 strain of avian influenza by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Before the death in Xinjiang, three others have died of bird flu and another has been infected in the country so far this year. The first death was a 19-year-old woman in Beijing on January 5, followed by a 27-year-old woman in Shandong on January 17 and a 16-year-old boy in Hunan on January 20.

A two-year-old girl who was critically ill with the disease was out of danger at a hospital in Shanxi on Friday after her vital signs remained stable for six consecutive days.

The death rate for bird flu patients is above 60 percent.

Meanwhile, east China's Shandong Province yesterday ended the emergency response to bird flu, a week after a woman died of the virus.

All the 157 people who had close contact with the woman surnamed Zhang were discharged from medical observation yesterday morning. No one was found to be infected, said a senior official of the provincial health department.

Zhang, 27, who lived in Jinan, the provincial capital, fell ill on January 5 and went to hospital when her condition worsened. Her death was the second bird flu related death in China this year.

The province launched the emergency response after Zhang died and there has been no report of human or animal infections of bird flu since then.

Shandong is taking further measures to prevent and control the virus. It has banned the raising of poultry in urban areas and protected water areas.

Medical workers in the province had put more than 400,000 people under surveillance during the emergency response.

There have been 31,856 cases of respiratory disease in Jinan since Zhang's death and 586 people are suffering from influenza in the Huaiyin District where Zhang lived.