China's bird flu outlook is "not optimistic" Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday, while the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that five people were now known to have died from the virus there, Reuters reported. "Measures to prevent and control the epidemic must be strengthened as the danger of bird flu not only exists in China but also threatens other countries," Xinhua said, citing health department spokesman Mao Qun'an. In the latest human case, a 6-year-old boy from the central province of Hunan was taken sick in December and is now in hospital. In a statement on its Web site, the WHO said Chinese authorities had said that the victims in two cases reported last month had subsequently died. Of eight confirmed cases in China, five have now died, the WHO said. The people who died were a 10-year-old girl from the Guangxi region and a 35-year-old man from Jiangxi province, the Geneva-based WHO said. China reported more than 30 outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus in birds last year. H5N1 avian influenza is known to have killed 78 people since 2003 and with outbreaks in Turkey there are signs it could spread into mainland Europe. The WHO says there is no evidence so far to demonstrate human transmission, but experts fear the H5N1 strain will evolve just enough to allow it to pass easily from person to person. If it does, it could cause a pandemic, killing tens of millions of people, because humans lack immunity. China is investigating the cause of infection in its latest human case, Xinhua said, adding that birds raised by the boy's family had died before he began showing flu-like symptoms. "No abnormal clinic symptoms have been detected in the patients. Nor are there human-to-human cases," Mao was quoted as saying. But the boy's condition has now has turned critical and doctors are fighting to save his life, Xinhua said. China, along with Vietnam, has suffered numerous outbreaks in poultry since October and Beijing has launched sweeping measures to stop the virus spreading and infecting more people, including a campaign to vaccinate all domestic poultry. Officials say the preponderance of small family farms, a lack of well-trained local officials and the world's biggest poultry population will make it hard to contain the disease in China. The Agriculture Ministry has warned that the risk of the virus spreading could be higher during the Chinese Lunar New Year, which falls at the end of January this year, as meat consumption and the transport of live poultry increases. China's poultry industry, which state media says lost 60 billion yuan ($7.44 billion) alone in the fourth quarter of 2005, is gearing up for more losses, according to one senior official. "Prices of chicks have fallen 80 percent, and the price of chicken in the markets is down 20 percent," Deng Fujiang, vice chairman of the China Meat Association, told Reuters. Less severe poultry outbreaks in 2004 cost the industry an estimated 30 billion yuan, and the final figure for 2005 was likely to be far higher, he said. China has been strictly controlling the movement of poultry around the country since last Autumn, even going as far as to set up special quarantine stations outside major cities to ensure no live birds get in. It has done little to boost consumer confidence. "In our surveys, 40 percent of people said they are either eating less poultry, or have stopped altogether," Deng said.
