BEIJING, Nov 16: China announced on Wednesday its first human cases of bird flu, saying the H5N1 virus had killed one woman, likely claimed the life of another girl and infected one boy who has since recovered.

The health ministry said a 24-year-old woman in the eastern province of Anhui died of the bird flu on November 10 after falling ill on November 1. Anhui has been the scene of two bird flu outbreaks in recent weeks.

“One to two weeks before she died, chickens and ducks raised by her family had died, and she had been in contact with the dead poultry,” the state-run Xinhua agency said, citing the health ministry.

A 12-year-old girl from an infected area in neighbouring Hunan province who died on October 17 was also ‘suspected’ to have been a victim of H5N1, the ministry said, adding it was following World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines in making its findings.

“Experts from the health ministry have inferred that (the 12-year-old girl) may have been infected with H5N1,” a ministry statement carried by Xinhua said.

“But because reliable laboratory samples are not available, this cannot be confirmed as a case of bird flu according to the WHO’s definition.”

The ministry confirmed that the girl’s brother, aged nine, was infected with bird flu. He has since recovered and was discharged from hospital last week.

The siblings had been in close contact with infected chicken, the health ministry said.

The WHO said it had confirmed similar findings to the health ministry.

“We accept only two of those cases... that’s the nine-year-old boy in Hunan and a 24-year-old woman in Anhui,” Geneva-based WHO spokesman for infectious diseases, Dick Thompson, told AFP by telephone.

Thompson said ‘it may be likely’ that the 12-year-old died of bird flu.

“But according to our case definition we need samples that can be confirmed in the laboratory, and the samples weren’t of a quality that could be used to determine whether or not she did indeed have bird flu,” he said.—AFP