Infectious Diseases 2005

Report date: 8 November 2005. An outbreak of Newcastle disease was reported in Akbaslar village, Inegol district, Bursa province (in the western part of the country). Date of first confirmation of the event: 1 November 2005. Date of start of the event: 20 October 2005. Clinical disease: yes. Nature of diagnosis: clinical and laboratory. Number of susceptible animals in the outbreak (village): 816. Number of cases/deaths: 120.

A 41-year-old woman (Zhou) from China's southeast has become the country's third confirmed human fatality from the virulent H5N1 strain of avian influenza, the government said Thursday. The woman, a factory worker in Sanming, a city in coastal Fujian province, fell ill on Dec. 6 and died on Dec. 21. On 13 December, initial laboratory tests on samples from the patient tested negative for H5N1. But further tests on 23 December - including PCR tests carried out at the Chinese Center for Disease Control in Beijing - showed positive results. The virus was also isolated from the patient. Fujian has not reported any outbreaks among birds.

Turkey has reported an outbreak of avian influenza in chickens, less than a month after declaring its territory free of the virus, and said it had culled 359 birds as a precautionary measure. In a statement released late on Tuesday, the Agriculture Ministry said it had imposed quarantine in the affected area of Igdir, near Turkey's far eastern border with Armenia, after detecting a strain of the avian influenza virus in dead chickens.

The European Commission will adopt a decision to apply the EU import ban on Romanian poultry meat and poultry products to 26 provinces affected by avian influenza, following a positive opinion by the Member States at a meeting of the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health (SCFCAH) on 20 December. This extends the regionalised zone in Romania, which was endorsed by SCFCAH on 23 November 2005. Import restrictions for poultry meat and products will now apply to most of the area South and East of the Carpate Mountains, due to some recent outbreaks of avian influenza within Romania. EU restrictions on live birds from Romania will continue to apply to the whole country.

Two Vietnamese patients infected with avian influenza died after developing a resistance to Tamiflu. Doctors, in the report published in the New England Journal of Medicine, studied eight Vietnamese patients who were given oseltamivir, the anti-influenza medicine marketed as Tamiflu by F. Hoffman-La Roche Ltd., a Basel, Switzerland, pharmaceutical company. Two of the patients, who died, developed a resistance to the drug. One patient, a 13-year-old girl, died seven days after getting the virus, despite being put on the recommended Tamiflu dosage one day after showing symptoms, the report said. The company plans to conduct clinical trials with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the World Health Organization to see whether a higher dosage of Tamiflu would be more effective against severe influenza, which includes the avian influenza strain seen in Southeast Asia.

An outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza A virus subtype H7N7 began in poultry farms in the Netherlands in 2003. Virus infection was detected by RT-PCR in 86 poultry workers and three household contacts of PCR-positive poultry workers, mainly associated with conjunctivitis. To determine the magnitude of and risk factors for human-to-human transmission of influenza A/H7N7 in the Netherlands, a retrospective cohort study among household members of infected poultry workers was undertaken. In total, 33 (58.9%) of 56 (among 62) participants who provided blood samples had positive H7 serology, using single convalescent serum samples obtained at least 3 weeks after onset of symptoms of the index case. Eight household members (12.9%) reported symptoms (conjunctivitis and/or ILI), of which four of five (80.0%) tested seropositive.

An eight-year-old Indonesian boy has died from the H5N1 strain of avian influenza according to local tests, a Health Ministry official said on Monday.

Report date: 16 December 2005. Nature of diagnosis: laboratory. Date of initial detection of animal health incident: 15 December 2005 Location of the outbreak: County of Ostergotland. Description of affected population: laying hens. Total number of animals in the outbreak: susceptible: 40,000 deaths: 42; destroyed: 39,958 ICPI=1.275. Other epidemiological details: - A neighbouring farm (500 m away) was positive in PCR but negative in virus isolation (OIE).

Local tests have confirmed that a 36-year-old man who died two days ago in a Jakarta hospital had avian influenza, senior health officials said. Health officials were still waiting for the results to be confirmed by a World Health Organization (WHO) laboratory, but if the man, who lived in South Jakarta, is confirmed to have died from avian influenza, he would be the 10th fatality in Indonesia from the virus.

A sixth person in China has become infected with the potentially fatal avian influenza virus, the Chinese Ministry of Health said on Thursday. The latest victim is a 35-year-old man in Suichuan County of Jiangxi Province, east China. He developed symptoms of fever on 4 December followed by pneumonia. The World Health Organization said it was aware of the case. He remains hospitalized and is receiving intensive care.

Indonesia confirmed its ninth human fatality from avian influenza. Swabs from a 35-year-old man who died in Jakarta last month tested positive for the H5N1 avian influenza strain in a World Health Organization reference laboratory. He developed symptoms of fever, cough, and breathing difficulty on 6 Nov 2005, was hospitalized on 9 Nov 2005, and died on 19 Nov 2005.The report takes to 14 the number of confirmed human cases in Indonesia.

Beijing has the 'virus in every corner of the country,' Hong Kong virologist says. Despite growing pressure for openness, Chinese officials have concealed avian influenza outbreaks in several provinces for many months this year, a leading scientific expert says. "I don't know if they are brave enough to admit that they have the virus in every corner of the country," said Guan Yi, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong who has analyzed nearly 100,000 avian influenza virus samples from across China. "Quite honestly, some provinces have the virus and they still haven't announced any outbreak. I can show direct evidence, even though China is still trying very hard to block my research. The government doesn't do any surveillance studies, but they say there is no outbreak."

Officials confirm a 5-year-old boy in central Thailand has died of avian influenza. The five-year-old was from Nakhon Nayok province, about 106 kilometers (66 miles) northeast of Bangkok. “The boy died on Dec. 7. after he was admitted to the hospital on Nov. 25,'' Thai Health Minister Pinit Charusombat told a press conference in Bangkok today. ``His house didn't have chickens, but one of his relatives raised about 10 chickens, which all died after the boy fell sick. The livestock department has already culled 1,800 chickens and other birds in his village.''

The farm worker from the north-eastern Liaoning province is the country's fifth confirmed case. The woman fell ill in Heishan county on 30 October. She had a high fever and pneumonia-like symptoms, but she recovered following treatment at a hospital and was discharged on 29 November.

Japan: Newcastle disease. Report date: 6 December 2005. Date of first confirmation of the event: 1 December 2005. Date of start of the event: 24 November 2005. Nature of diagnosis: clinical and laboratory. Both infected farms belong to the same corporation. Location of the outbreaks (farms): - Yamamoto town, Miyagi prefecture; Kakuda city, Miyagi prefecture. Affected population: ducks (OIE).

A 10-year-old girl has been infected with the avian influenza virus, China's official Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday, quoting the Ministry of Health. The girl, surnamed Tang, from southern Guangxi region has been ill with fever and pneumonia since November 23, and has tested positive for the deadly H5N1 virus, the report said.

The Ministry of Health in Indonesia has confirmed a further case of human infection with the H5N1 avian influenza virus. The case occurred in a 25-year-old woman from Tangerang (west of Jakarta). She developed symptoms of fever and stomach discomfort on 17 November, followed by cough and breathing difficulty. She was admitted to hospital on 23 November and died on 25 November.

An eight-month-old baby is the latest patient to test positive for avian influenza in Indonesia. Doctors believe the baby may have caught the disease from an infected pigeon. A spokesman at the Sulianti Soroso hospital in Jakarta says preliminary tests, yet to be confirmed by the World Health Organisation in Hong Kong, show that the child is suffering from the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko Monday dismissed Ukraine’s Head of State Veterinary Department of Ukraine, Petro Verbytsky, in response to the delayed reporting of a virulent avian influenza outbreak. The decision was announced when he was touring one of the affected villages in the Crimea peninsula where he declared a state of emergency at the weekend.

Report date: 28 November 2005. Identification of agent: avian influenza virus serotype H5 (neuraminidase type is still to be determined). Date of first confirmation of the event: 28 November 2005. Date of start of the event: 28 November 2005. Nature of diagnosis: laboratory. Details of (suspected) outbreaks: Province : Matabeleland North. District: Umguza/Bubi Name of the location Mimosa Description of affected population: slaughter ostriches. Diagnosis: haemagglutination inhibition test (ostrich sera) 32/150 positive (OIE). [Probably it is H5N2 as the cases reported in South Africa]

The H5 strain of avian influenza was found in chickens and geese in two districts on the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea, the Ukrainian Agricultural Policy Ministry's press service said Saturday. The strain was found in the villages of Pushkino, Dzhankoyskiy district ; Zavet-Leninskoe, Dzhankoyskiy district ; Izobilnoe, Nizhnegorskiy district ; Yemelyanovka, Nizhnegorskiy district ; - Nekrasovka, Sovetskiy district - Republic of Crimea.

A 16-year-old boy confirmed as Indonesia's 12th human case of avian influenza had two brothers (aged 7 and 20) who died from similar symptoms days before he was taken to hospital, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday. The16-year-old boy, is in stable condition in the city of Bandung in West Java. The brothers had onset of illness on 3 November and died on 11 November, following symptoms of fever and breathing difficulty. They were never tested for the deadly H5N1 avian influenza virus, leaving questions hanging over the cause of death, WHO spokeswoman Maria Chang said.

A turkey flock tested positive for avian influenza H5 type in the small village of Scarlatesti in the Braila county, some 70 miles (113 km) from the delta. Authorities will begin culling all domestic birds (17,000) in the village, which is near several large lakes.

A 16-year-old boy has been confirmed as Indonesia’s 12th avian influenza case, a health official said yesterday. Health ministry official Hariadi Wibisono said that the condition of the boy, who was admitted to the state hospital in West Java’s provincial capital Bandung on November 15, was good but he was infected.

Officials confirmed Friday that 35 wild birds sampled in the Maritimes tested positive for H5 avian influenza viruses. The infected birds, mostly black ducks and mallards, were found largely in an area around the Tantramar marshes (1) near the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border. One positive case was found in Prince Edward Island (2).

A resident of northern Israel (Alma) may have contracted Avian influenza, The Israeli Ministry of Health has reported. The Ministry of Health will send samples to England for confirmation after some tests resulted positive.

China's Ministry of Health on Wednesday confirmed another human case of bird flu in east China's Anhui Province. This is the third confirmed human case of bird flu reported in China.

An H5-type avian influenza virus which is "low pathogenic" has been found on a second farm in Canada's western province of British Columbia (B.C.), a health official confirmed on Tuesday. The entire flock will be culled on a Fraser Valley farm after a duck tested positive for an H5-type virus over the weekend, Cornelius Kiley, a veterinarian with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, told reporters at a televised press conference.

Poor surveillance outside the capital may mean the number of human avian influenza cases in Indonesia is higher than what has been reported so far, the health minister said Tuesday. All but two of Indonesia's 11 confirmed cases of avian influenza have occurred in the greater Jakarta area. "Jakarta is better at detecting cases," said Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari. "I'm afraid that there are also many cases in other areas that are going undetected.

A front page article in the respected German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine, yesterday said that Dr. Masato Tashiro, a Japanese WHO consultant, believed that China has had 300 human deaths from avian influenza and is hiding the true extent of the disease from the rest of the world. Dr. Masato Tashiro, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Influenza at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, and head of the Department of Virology of the National Institute of Infectious Disease (Japan), astonished colleagues with the information during a speech at a recent retirement dinner for a fellow virologist, Hans-Dieter Klenk.

Report date: 22 November 2005. Two outbreaks of Newcastle disease were reported: one in poultry and one in wildlife. Nature of diagnosis: clinical, post-mortem and laboratory (confirmation on 16 November 2005). Date of start of the outbreak: 14 October 2005.

A Vietnamese teenager 15-year-old Vu Van Hoa, who is being treated at a local hospital, has been confirmed with the H5N1 avian influenza virus, health officials said on Tuesday. Hoa was hospitalized late last week together with four other patients from Haiphong who were suspected having avian influenza.

The Government of Canada announced that the wild birds from Quebec, Manitoba and British Columbia tested as part of a national wild bird survey are free of the strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza responsible for animal and human illness in Southeast Asia. Molecular testing of samples collected from the three provinces ruled out the Asian strain of avian influenza and confirmed that the viruses are low pathogenic.

A strain of H5 avian influenza has been found in a duck on a commercial farm in British Columbia's Fraser Valley. B.C. government officials said Friday there is no risk to human health, but the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has quarantined the farm under strict protocols developed after an outbreak of avian influenza in the area in 2004. At this point, health officials say they are not sure which strain of the H5 avian avian influenza was found in the duck. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is visiting farms in a five km radius around the infected premises near Abbotsford to test birds and is warning bird owners to practice strict biosecurity.

The World Health Organization has confirmed two more human avian influenza deaths in Indonesia, bringing the country's total death toll from the virus to seven, a hospital spokesman said. The first newly confirmed case was a 16-year-old girl from Jakarta. She developed symptoms on 4 November, was hospitalized on 6 November, and died on 8 November.

Chinese health officials Wednesday confirmed the country's first three human cases of avian influenza. Two cases were confirmed in the central province of Hunan and one in the eastern province of Anhui, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The report did not elaborate. But Chinese and World Health Organization experts had been studying the case of a 12-year-old girl and her brother, both of whom fell ill after their village in Hunan suffered a avian influenza outbreak in poultry.

China's announcement today that it plans to vaccinate all of its poultry against H5N1 avian influenza would launch the country on the largest single immunization effort in history for any species, according to a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) official. China raises about 14 billion birds a year and currently has 5.2 billion.

A senior Chinese official says H5N1 antibodies have been detected in a nine-year-old boy (He Junlong) in Hunan province, the first admission of a human avian influenza infection in China. He Junlong and his 12-year-old sister fell ill last month and were treated for pneumonia symptoms. The boy was discharged from hospital last weekend but his sister died.

The epidemiology report on the case of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1 in a quarantine facility in Essex has now been received from the National Emergency Epidemiology Group and was published by Defra today. The main findings of the report are: Within the species documented as coming from Taiwan only the Mesias were infected with H5N1 and 53 out of 101 birds had died.

Taiwan found a highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza, H7N3, in droppings left by a migratory bird and is carrying out tests to see if the virus has spread to nearby poultry farms, the agriculture department said on Monday. The Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine detected the H7N3 virus in one of 20 samples of bird droppings taken from a swamp outside the southern city of Tainan.

The latest incidents brought the total number of cases reported by China in the recent scare to eight. The outbreaks occurred in Liaoning province and Jingshan county, central province of Hubei (situated in central China), - 2,500 poultry died in two townships in the Jingshan county. The outbreak in Hubei province was found on Nov. 2, the statement said. China's National Avian influenza Reference Laboratory confirmed on Nov. 11 that the domestic fowl were infected with the H5N1 virus.

A 1 1/2-year-old boy became the 21st person to catch the H5N1 avian influenza virus, but he was recovering in a hospital, a senior health ministry official said. The boy lived in a house in Minburi, where three fighting cocks and a chicken also lived, said Dr. Thawat Suntarajarn, director-general of the Department of Communicable Disease Control.

Report date: 9 November 2005. Date of first confirmation of the event: 7 November 2005. Date of start of the event: 2 November 2005. Clinical disease: yes. Nature of diagnosis: clinical, post-mortem and laboratory. An outbreak of Newcastle disease (ND) was reported in a farm in the area of Diavata-Sindos, Prefecture of Thessaloniki in the Central Macedonia region. Number of susceptible animals in the outbreak (village): 3,100.

Kuwait has found the H5N1 avian influenza in one of two infected birds culled by authorities in the Gulf Arab state, an official said on Friday. This is the first known case of H5N1 in the Gulf Arab region. "One was H5N1 and the second was H5N2," Sheikh Fahd al-Salem al-Sabah, head of the public authority said. Authorities had found one case a few weeks ago at Kuwait airport in a shipment of exotic birds imported from Asia.

Experts on Thursday sought to ease alarm over the detection of avian influenza in a wild duck, saying the strain of virus was much weaker than that found in Asia and posed no threat to public health . "Although the codename is the same one used to denote the Asian virus, the form here is completely different," said experts at the avian influenza testing lab in Lagnaro near Padua . On Wednesday, the lab said that a migratory wild duck (mallard) had tested positive for H5N1. The mallard was killed by a hunter in the Modena province 20 days ago.

Two cases of avian influenza have been detected in fowl in Kuwait, a senior official said Thursday, the first evidence the virus has spread to the Persian Gulf region. Sheik Fahd Salem Al-Ali Al-Sabah, the head of the Public Authority for Agriculture and Fisheries, said the first case was in an imported bird and was discovered at the airport.

The Chinese government reported two new outbreaks of avian influenza and the second case in a week in the northeastern Liaoning Province on Wednesday, raising the country's outbreaks to six in a month. On Sunday, 1,100 chickens were found dead in two villages and a total of 500,000 poultry were culled within 3 kilometers of the avian influenza sites near Fuxin city and Jinzhou city in Liaoning Province, according to a statement from China's Ministry of Agriculture.

Report date: 8 November 2005 . Reason for immediate notification: re-occurrence of a listed disease or infection in a zone of the country. Precise identification of agent: avian paramyxovirus type 1 (APMV1), pigeon variant. Date of first confirmation of the event: 7 November 2005 . Date of start of the event: 31 October 2005 . Diagnosis: the clinical signs recorded in this farm (mortality, nervous and respiratory signs), as well as the positive serological results obtained and the isolation of APMV1, are suggestive of Newcastle disease.

An initial test showed a 16-year-old girl who died this week had avian influenza. The test result showed positive, but the final confirmation is still waiting for confirmation from Hong Kong.

An eight-year-old boy has been declared positive of avian influenza in Indonesia. The new avian influenza patient was identified as Ilham Junaidi, whose elder sister died (Ina Solati) of avian influenza last week. 19-year-old Ina, who had many birds in her house, died on Oct. 28 after several days of treatment at another hospital in the Jakarta suburb of Tangerang. The hospital believed Ilham and Ina contracted the virus from the birds.

Avian Influenza virus has killed three rare civet cats at a national park in Vietnam, officials said Friday, the first time the virus has been reported in the species. The Owston civets died in late June at Cuc Phuong National Park, about 75 miles south of Hanoi. Samples sent to a lab in Hong Kong came back positive for the avian influenza H5N1 virus. Most other animals at the park have been tested - including birds and rats - but none have been found to have the virus.

Report date (to the OIE): 23 August 2005. Date of initial detection of animal health incident: 18 August 2005. Estimated date of primary infection: 15 August 2005.

A preliminary virologic diagnosis of avian influenza in one seagull in the City of Oulu, Northern Finland, has been made by the Finnish veterinary authorities. Confirmation of avian influenza in birds has earlier been made in Finland only once in the late 1970s. The tests employed indicate influenza A infection. The virus preliminarily identified as avian influenza A is being submitted to an EU reference laboratory. A slight increase has been observed in the Oulu area in findings of dead waterfowl in summer 2005 as compared to previous summer seasons. In careful risk assessment of the epidemiological and virological information currently available on the incident, the Finnish veterinary authorities have concluded that the influenza A finding most likely is of a low pathogenicity type (LPAI).

The authorities said they have discovered a new case of avian influenza at a chicken farm near here, prompting health officials to order the culling of some 100,000 chickens. The farm is in Ishioka (Ibaraki Prefecture), that keeps 1.11 mln chickens in 12 houses, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said in a statement. All birds at the farm will be culled except for those kept in enclosed poultry houses that were unaffected, the ministry said. Kyodo News agency said about 260,000 chickens would be culled.

Japan has found a new case of avian influenza in a farm in Konosu, Tokyo's neighboring Saitama Prefecture in east Japan. Several chickens on a farm in Saitama prefecture, west of the capital, tested positive for the H5 type of avian influenza, but studies are still being made to determine the subtype.

A avian influenza outbreak in Russia appeared to be spreading westward on Monday after officials confirmed the virus had broken out west to the Ural mountains region of Chelyabinsk, since the epidemic struck the country in mid-July. Chelyabinsk is the sixth region affected. The others -- Altai, Novosibirsk, Tyumen, Kurgan, Omsk -- are further east in Siberia. Interfax news agency quoted Andrei Gasilov, vice-governor of Chelyabinsk (Black), as saying the virus had killed 60 birds in the village of Oktyabrskoye on the Kazakh border since Saturday.

A large outbreak of salmonella gastroenteritis has been reported in Spain, with 2138 cases, including one fatality reported by 8 August 2005. Reported cases have been epidemiologically and microbiologically linked to a single brand of pre-cooked, vacuum-packed roast chicken which was commercially distributed throughout Spain. The National Reference Laboratory for Salmonella and Shigella has received 90 salmonella isolates from patients and six from chicken samples. Results of the 35 strains studied so far (30 human, five chicken) confirm the identification of Salmonella Hadar, and in 34 strains, phage type (PT) 2 has been identified. The isolates are resistant to ampicillin, cefalotine, streptomycin, nalidixic acid, and tetracycline. The pulsed field gel electrophoresis profiles of human and chicken samples are indistinguishable.

China has discovered avian influenza, at a farm in Tibet. The virus found was likely to be the H5N1 strain. The Chinese authorities informed the OIE that 133 breeding chickens had died and 2,600 birds were destroyed in a farm close to the capital Lhasa, which had prompted them to cull an additional 2600 birds in the surrounding area (OIE).

Chickens at five Japanese poultry farms near one recently hit by the avian influenza virus have shown signs of also being infected with the disease. The five farms are located about 0.3 miles from the area in Ibaraki prefecture where a low pathogenic avian influenza strain was confirmed. The birds at the five farms were found carrying the antibody to the disease, indicating the birds had been infected with the virus, the Asahi Shimbun reported Thursday. The type of virus has yet to be confirmed, officials said.

The Hanoi resident, one of four people infected by the H5N1 virus being treated in hospital, died on Tuesday after being admitted on June 23, the Lao Dong newspaper quoted hospital officials as saying.

Birds are still dying in Qinghai Province at the rate of 20 a day, said Julie Hall the WHO official in charge of communicable diseases in China , adding that the government has agreed to test other birds to see if they are carriers capable of infecting species in other areas and to share test results with the international community. The migratory birds are still on the island but they will begin flying to other parts of China and neighbouring countries in about a month, Hall said.

Vietnam said Wednesday it will begin vaccinating poultry nationwide against avian influenza in August. Vaccinations will begin Aug. 1 at commercial poultry operations and smaller household farms in northern Nam Dinh province and southern Tien Giang province in the Mekong Delta, said Bui Quang Anh, head of Vietnam's animal health department. Vaccinations will be slowly expanded to another 40 high-risk provinces in the next two years, he said. An initial 20 million doses of vaccines will be imported from the Netherlands (Intervet) and China. The two-year poultry vaccination program will cost $35 million, said To Long Thanh, also with Vietnam's Department of Animal Health.

An outbreak of avian influenza in western China's Qinghai province may spread to other provinces and possibly other countries, carried by migratory birds that have the virus, two United Nations teams said in Beijing. Five thousand birds on an island in a Qinghai nature reserve have died from the virus since early May, according to officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) who visited the area since last week [The death toll is five times the 1,000 birds previously announced by the Chinese government - N.E].

The H5N2-type avian influenza virus has been detected at a chicken farm in Mitsukaido, east Japan's Ibaraki Prefecture, where hundreds of fowl died earlier this year, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry announced Sunday. The ministry confirmed the infection of chickens with the virus at the farm about 800 of its 25 000 chickens died between April and June 2005,. The Farm Ministry plans to limit the movement of eggs and chickens in a 5-km (3-mile) radius around the chicken farm to prevent the virus from spreading. There are 16 other farms that raise a total of 710,000 chickens within this area.

Qinghai Province has transferred vaccines for 3 million poultry to prevent the spread of avian influenza. Northwest China's Qinghai Province has transferred vaccines for 3 million poultry to prevent the spread of avian influenza, after an outbreak was reported earlier this week.

Ministry of Agriculture announced Saturday that the reported death of migratory birds in West China's Qinghai Province was caused by avian influenza. The ministry said the national avian influenza reference laboratory confirmed that the latest death of migratory birds (178 spot-headed geese; see Promed Archive Number 20050510.1278) in Gangcha City of Qinghai Province (Western China) reported on May 4 was caused by the deadly H5N1 virus. The disease did not spread to human kind and fowl, the ministry said.