Vice Health Minister Wang Longde confirmed yesterday that the
bird flu virus in China has not mutated into a human virus and is
as yet not transmissible among humans.
"The strain of the virus detected in China is still of the avian
variety and will not induce people-to-people transmission," Wang
said after attending a panel discussion of lawmakers from the
northwestern province of
Shaanxi on the sidelines of the ongoing Fourth
Plenary Session of the National People's Congress?(NPC).
As?of March 7, 15 Chinese people had been infected with the
disease, among whom 10 have died.
The latest casualty was a nine-year-old girl from east China's
Zhejiang Province who died on March 6.
Pandemic control expert, Zhong Nanshan, said that the avian flu
is being passed to humans through live poultry and other
animals.
"An urgent task is to give the issue nationwide publicity,"
Zhong said.
On the other hand, Zhong said that people should not be overly
worried about the spread of the virus. "The majority of people are
not sensitive to the current strain of the virus."
Globally, 175 human cases including 95 deaths had been reported
to the World Health Organization (WHO) as?of March 6,
according to information published on the WHO website.
(Xinhua News Agency March 8, 2006)