The last 28 of 41 people who had close contact with China's second known human fatality from H5N1 avian influenza, in the eastern province of Anhui, have been released from weeklong medical observation, a local health official said on Wednesday.

All 41 have been declared symptom free and will receive follow-up checkups for another week, said Ye Zhonggang, director of Xiuning County's health bureau.

The other 13 people held for observation had been released on November 24, said Ye.

A 35-year-old farmer in Xiuning named Xu developed fever and pneumonia-like symptoms on November 11 after contact with sick and dead poultry. She died on November 22 and the Ministry of Health confirmed the next day that tests had shown her to be H5N1 positive.

The first reported human death was of a 24-year-old woman from a farm in Anhui's Zongyang County named Zhou on November 10. She was confirmed as having had bird flu on November 16, along with another human case of infection.

This involved a nine-year-old boy in central China's Hunan Province who has since recovered. His 12-year-old sister had similar symptoms and died on October 17, but whether she had the virus or not could not be determined.

The 30th outbreak amongst birds in the country this year was also confirmed by the Ministry of Agriculture yesterday, in Xinyuan County of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China.

The ministry said 300 chickens had been killed by the virus in Beisituobie Village on November 24, and that it and the local government were handling the outbreak in accordance with emergency plans. Local veterinary departments have culled 118,153 poultry within three kilometers of the affected area.

The same day, a Hubei Province agricultural department official said the quarantine of a poultry farm and village in Jingshan County, where an outbreak killed 2,500 chickens and ducks on November 2, has been lifted.

The official said there had been no signs of the epidemic for 28 days, but that veterinarians would continue to monitor affected areas.

(Xinhua News Agency, China.org.cn December 1, 2005)