China hit by bird flu outbreak

Thousands of ducks in southern China have been culled

China has confirmed its first case of the potentially deadly avian flu sweeping Asia.

The official Xinhua news agency said ducks in southern Guangxi province had been infected, and 14,000 culled.

But there have been no cases of the bird flu jumping to humans, Xinhua said.

There has been mounting concern about the avian flu's spread in Asia, and surprise it had spared China, where last year's Sars outbreak began.

Xinhua said China's national bird flu reference laboratory confirmed the Guangxi duck deaths were caused by the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus.

The agency also reported that deaths had occurred among a chicken population in Wuxue city, central Hubei province, and among ducks in Wugang city, neighbouring Hunan province.

It said local vets had diagnosed both cases as suspected H5N1.

Bob Dietz, a spokesman for the World Health Organization in Hanoi, said that, because Guangxi borders Vietnam, which has already been hard hit by the virus, it "wouldn't be surprising" that bird flu had permeated the border.

The Chinese outbreak was first reported by Hong Kong newspapers earlier in the week.

China, sensitive to potential accusations of a cover-up similar to that in the early stages of Sars, says it has given all the information it has to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Health Organisation.

It says it welcomes their help in trying to prevent the spread of the disease.

Beijing itself has stepped up border inspections for sick birds, and has ordered all health workers to be trained in methods to stem the spread of the disease by mid-March.

The news will merely confirm what many people have been suspecting for the past few days.

Despite a lack of official indications that anything was wrong, some Chinese have said they already refrained from eating chicken over the lunar new year festivities which are just drawing to a close.