China yesterday reported a bird flu outbreak in Hubei Province, bringing the total number of provinces affected by the deadly virus to five since October.
The outbreak in Hubei's Jingshan County killed 2,500 poultry and prompted authorities to destroy more than 31,000 birds. The case, which occurred on November 2 and was confirmed yesterday, was Hubei's first in the latest series of outbreaks.
One of the new outbreaks was in Liaoning Province in the northeast.
The outbreak on Sunday killed 300 chickens in Beining village near the city of Jinzhou, the Agriculture Ministry said. About 2.5 million birds were destroyed to contain the outbreak.
The latest case in China brought the country's total number of outbreaks over the past month to eight, with four of them in Liaoning.
China has reported no human cases.
A total of 121 patients with fever or flu-like symptoms in Liaoning do not have the deadly virus, the local authority confirmed yesterday.
The provincial health department said it had ruled out that the patients in Heishan County were infected by bird flu. Only a female chicken raiser suffered serious pneumonia and she tested negative for the virus in a preliminary exam, doctors said.
The patient is in stable condition and doctors were still searching for the cause of her disease.
Since the first case of bird flu in Liaoning was confirmed on October 26, the local government has launched strict measures to prevent the deterioration of the situation, including poultry culling, disinfecting public sites, and sequestering more than 400,000 local residents.
Elsewhere, no pigs were infected by bird flu in a region where an outbreak in Hunan Province, the provincial government said yesterday.
"Blood samples were taken from pigs, ducks and chickens beyond a three-kilometer radius of the bird flu area in Wantang Village, where the first such case in the province was found last month. All tested negative for the H5N1 virus, officials said.
In Shanghai, the city designated the Shanghai Public Health Center in Jinshan District as the main hospital to receive and treat people with avian influenza.
Stand-by medical service areas have undergone thorough disinfection and separation.
A total of 250-odd beds in the center are available for bird flu infectors. Every ward is equipped with special ventilation system and computer monitoring.
Fudan University Children's Hospital and Shanghai Pulmonary Disease Hospital are also designated medical facilities.
Shanghai Health Bureau also issued a notice, requiring local hospitals to tighten inspection on people with fever and respiratory syndromes, especially those coming from epidemic-affected regions or those having intimate contact with poultry.