New outbreaks of highly pathogenic bird flu have been reported in a town near Xiaoyi City in the northern Shanxi Province and a village near Urumqi City in the northwest Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the Ministry of Agriculture announced yesterday in Beijing.

On November 10, 8,103 chickens raised in Gaoyang Town of Xiaoyi City died. Two days later, eight chickens died in a village near Urumqi City.

Local veterinary departments suspected that they were highly pathogenic bird flu. On Wednesday and Thursday, the national bird flu lab diagnosed that both cases were the H5N1 highly pathogenic bird flu.

The Ministry of Agriculture has paid great attention to the bird flu outbreaks in the two regions, sending expert panels there quickly and enhancing blockage, slaughtering and innocuity disposal.

In Zongyang, Anhui, people who have had close contact with the confirmed two bird flu human cases have showed no abnormal symptoms, local governments said on Thursday.

The disease control and prevention center in Zongyang County of eastern Anhui Province ended the medical observation to 22 farmers who had close contact with the 24-year-old woman farmer, who was confirmed dead of the H5N1 bird flu by the Ministry of Health on Wednesday.

"They were all OK and there has been no new case reported," said Wu Fuqing.

In addition, no abnormal signs have been detected from all the 152 villagers and medical workers in Xiangtan County of the central Hunan Province, who had close contact with the boy and his sister, confirmed and suspected cases respectively, said the county's health authorities.

"What's more, the 908 fever cases in the county are in recovery," said Ai Ronggui, deputy director of the county's health bureau in Beijing.

In Changsha, the World Health Organization said yesterday the strain of H5N1 bird flu virus found in central China's outbreak is identical to the one detected in Vietnam and Thailand, according to local health authorities.

After three days investigation in Hunan, a team of WHO experts concluded that currently there is no sign of human-to-human bird flu transmission in China and the strain of bird flu virus is the same as that in Vietnam and Thailand, the provincial health department said yesterday in the provincial capital.