A 39-year-old man died from avian flu in south-west China on Sunday, the Xinhua news agency reported citing the Health Ministry, according to dpa. The man fell ill with a fever on January 6, and died Sunday in a hospital in Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou province, after three days in intensive care. This is the second death in less than a month from the virulent H5N1 strain. On December 31, a bus driver died from bird flu in the city of Shenzhen, bordering Hong Kong. According to a World Health Organization (WHO) update on Friday, there have been 582 confirmed human cases for avian flu and 343 deaths since 2003. WHO reports only laboratory cases. Experts have repeatedly warned that the H5N1 strain carries the threat of a global pandemic if it mutates into a form that is more easily transmitted between humans.
