Xinhua/Shanghai Daily

Police help cull chickens in Heishan County, Liaoning Province, in the effort to control the bird-flu outbreak in northeast China. More than 6 million chickens had been slaughtered by yesterday morning. - Xinhua

State government has asked for help from the World Health Organization in determining whether the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus killed a 12-year-old girl and sickened two others last month in central China.
Three people living in Xiangtan County in Hunan Province came down with pneumonia following an outbreak of bird flu among local poultry, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health said yesterday.
A 12-year-old girl died, and her 9-year-old brother and a 36-year-old middle school teacher recovered from the illness.
At the time, Chinese officials said initial tests showed that the girl and her brother did not have the virus.
But the spokesman said yesterday that experts "cannot rule out the possibility of human transmission of H5N1 bird flu. The specific cause needs further laboratory tests."
The ministry has invited WHO experts to help determine what caused the casualty, the spokesman added.
On Saturday night, authorities began slaughtering poultry in Heishan County in northeast China's Liaoning Province - the site of the country's most recent outbreak, where nearly 9,000 chickens died from avian flu.
More than 6 million birds in the affected areas had been killed by yesterday morning as a protective measure.
Poultry farmers reported the deaths among their flocks on October 26, and the Ministry of Agriculture confirmed last Thursday that the birds had been stricken by the H5N1 strain of the virus.
The culling began at 4pm Saturday, with armed police officers and health professionals mobilized to carry out the campaign.
"The people of Heishan are calm, social order is normal and the price of goods is stable," said Wang Yunwen, deputy secretary-general of the Jinzhou government, where the outbreak appeared to be centered.
Heishan County government has bought 10.85 million milliliters of vaccines for birds in sectors not affected by the epidemic, according to Du Jinkui, director of Jinzhou's Information Office.
"We must ensure that 100 percent of the poultry in those areas are immunized," he said.
Heishan is located along a route that migratory birds use to travel from East Asia to Australia. More than 20 magpies and other wild birds have also been found dead, leading authorities to suspect that migratory birds may have been the carriers of the disease.
Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu, who heads a national team tasked with bird-flu prevention and control, said yesterday that several tasks still need to be done, including increasing monitoring, alert and forecast systems, enhancing immunization, strengthening international cooperation and maintaining a sound market environment for healthy poultry and related products.
In addition, efforts should be made to establish a prevention and control mechanism with long-lasting effectiveness, he said.
He said funds for epidemic prevention in animals should be increased, a team of grass-roots veterinarians should be trained and maintained, research on epidemic prevention and control technology should be enhanced, and vaccines and other medicines should be prepared and stored.
In Shanghai, authorities issued new warnings urging local markets to strictly follow rules on the sale of live chickens, ducks and other fowl to prevent the possible spread of bird flu.
The Shanghai Economic Commission issued an urgent notice on Saturday reminding the city's three live-chicken wholesalers to halt trading once a week and carry out thorough sterilization.
In addition, 461 live-chicken retailers were reminded to suspend business once every two weeks for cleanups.
Live ducks, pigeons, quails and other fowl are not allowed to be sold under the anti-bird-flu rules.
Separately, market watchdogs in Qingpu District said over the weekend that they shut down an underground poultry slaughterhouse and fined the operators, who were from outside Shanghai.