China Confirms 23rd Bird Flu Outbreak Among Poultry

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's Ministry of Agriculture confirmed a bird flu outbreak in Zalantun city in northern China's Inner Mongolia, the official Xinhua news agency said on Friday, bringing to 23 the number of outbreaks of the disease.

A state avian flu lab confirmed that 246 fowl which died last Sunday in Zalantun had the H5N1 strain of highly pathogenic bird flu, Xinhua said.

Local veterinary departments have culled 16,567 poultry within three kilometers (two miles) of the affected area, it said.

Separately, Xinhua said that a school teacher in southern Hunan province, who fell ill after handling raw chicken and was a suspected bird flu case, had tested negative for the disease. The teacher has since recovered.

China has confirmed two deaths from the bird flu virus. Both were women who worked in the poultry industry in the eastern Anhui province. A third confirmed case, a nine-year-old boy living in Hunan province, recovered. His dead sister is a suspected case.

Bird flu is known to have killed 68 people in Asia. Experts worry that the virus could mutate to become easily transmissable among humans, potentially leading to a global pandemic. China has already culled more than 20 million birds this year to contain the spread of avian influenza.