Concerns about the spread of bird flu are now at a fever pitch in China. On May 8, Xinhua News Agency reported abnormal deaths of migratory birds in Gangcha county, Qinghai province. On May 21, the China Ministry of Agriculture (CMA) confirmed that the deaths were indeed caused by the H5N1 bird flu virus that has been spreading in other parts of Asia.

The quarantine and control authority in the province immediately allocated three million doses of vaccine to inoculate all domesticated fowl in the Haidong and Haixi Mongolian or Tibetan autonomous regions of the province. The central government issued notices to all local governments to urgently implement measures to limit the spread of the disease.

Xinhua reports that the CMA was aware of the bird deaths as early as May 4 and concerns were raised at that time of the possibility of bird flu infections and the further spread to the human population. The former principal doctor from the People’s Hospital of Shaanxi province, Jin Fusheng, said that preventing the spread of the virus to the fowl population was extremely challenging. Vaccination is only partially effective in suppressing the spread of the virus.

Pang Yubin, a former researcher at the US National Institute of Health, said that people should take seriously the warnings of possible outbreaks of bird flu this year made by the World Health Organization (WHO). According to a report by the WHO published on April 20, the H5N1 bird flu virus is mutating, posing a growing threat to humans. Pang explains: “The mutation refers to gene mutation in the virus. In the process of mutation, the virulence of the virus may become stronger or weaker. If it becomes stronger, it can pose a great threat to humans in that it will spread more quickly and cause more deaths.”

Jin said that it was currently impossible to predict whether there is any threat to humans from the current outbreak. However, he said that animal to human transfer had occurred in the past and if the virus mutated into a form where it could then transfer to another human, people would then be at risk.