A 16-year-old boy infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus died Tuesday in central China, the country's third fatality from the disease this month, AP reported. Authorities also stepped up bird flu precautions on fears the virus can survive longer in cold weather as tens of millions of people travel between cities and rural hometowns for the Lunar New Year holiday, which typically includes feasts with poultry. The student surnamed Wu, who had been in critical condition, died Tuesday morning in Huaihua, a city in Hunan province, the official Xinhua News Agency said. He fell ill on Jan. 8 in his hometown in the neighboring province of Guizhou and was transferred to a hospital in Huaihua on Jan. 16, when his condition worsened. He had contact with dead poultry, the report said without giving other details. The two other bird flu deaths were a 27-year-old woman in Shandong province in the country's east who died on Saturday and a 19-year-old woman who died in Beijing on Jan. 5. Also Tuesday, a 2-year-old girl who had been critically ill with the H5N1 virus in Hunan was in stable condition and returned to her home in the north, China Central Television said in its noon newscast. The state television report said the girl had been to live poultry markets «many times» but did not elaborate. The girl's mother died earlier this month from pneumonia after being exposed to poultry, a Hunan health bureau official said in an interview published Tuesday in the state-run China Business News newspaper. However, the official surnamed Peng could not confirm a link to H5N1. Most bird flu cases stem from exposure to sick birds, but human-to-human transmission of bird flu has happened about a dozen times in the past in countries including China, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Turkey. In nearly every case, transmission has occurred among blood relatives who have been in close contact, and the virus has not spread into the wider community.
