October 28, 2005

 

WHO awaits confirmation dead Chinese girl negative for bird flu

 

 

The World Health Organization was seeking confirmation Friday that a girl who died in a region of China hit by bird flu tested negative for the disease.

 

The local health authority in the girl's home province of Hunan in the country's south said she died of "pneumonia with acute respiratory distress syndrome and heart failure" - not bird flu - the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

 

"We don't know what tests have been conducted," WHO spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi said Friday. "We're waiting for official information from the health ministry in Beijing," she said.

 

China has reported no human cases of bird flu, but scientists said the country could potentially be a huge incubator for the disease because of its large poultry industry and vast territory.

 

It has reported three bird flu outbreaks in poultry since October 19, the latest in the dead girl's village.

 

It was unclear if the girl, 12-year-old He Yin, had come into contact with a diseased bird before she died, but she had eaten a chicken that had died of bird flu. Experts said there was no evidence that eating a well-cooked chicken could cause the disease.

 

Many farm families in China raised chickens, often in their yards.

 

The girl lived in Wantang, a village where the government said 545 chickens and ducks died of bird flu last week. She died three days after developing a high fever on October 13. She was treated at the Provincial Children's Hospital in Changsha, Hunan's capital.

 

Her younger brother also fell ill, on October 17. He had bronchial pneumonia according to the hospital, Xinhua said.

 

Bird flu has killed at least 62 people since it surfaced in 2003, according to the WHO.

 

Health experts have warned that the virus could mutate into a form that could be easily transmitted between humans, and trigger a global pandemic.