China 'struggling' to curb bird flu

China said it was "an arduous task" to curb the outbreak

China has acknowledged that it is facing an uphill struggle to stop bird flu spreading across the vast country.

The Ministry of Agriculture said "parts of our animal disease prevention system are weak and vulnerable and people have limited knowledge about the disease".

Twelve of China's 31 provinces have confirmed or suspected outbreaks, but no human case has been reported.

On Thursday, a girl was confirmed to have died of the flu in Vietnam, taking the death toll in Asia to 16.

The latest victim was a 16-year-old girl from southern Vietnam who died on Tuesday at Ho Chi Minh City's Hospital for Tropical Disease, its deputy director Tran Tinh Hien, said.

People who have contracted the H5N1 bird flu are generally thought to have caught it through contact with sick birds.

But experts are worried the virus could mutate into a strain that could pass from human to human, although there is no firm evidence that this has happened yet.

Tens of millions of chickens have already died or been slaughtered in 10 affected Asian countries, but the World Health Organization (WHO) warns the outbreak is far from being under control.

In other developments:

• Cambodia confirms two new outbreaks of bird flu at a zoo and a family farm near the capital Phnom Penh

• egg prices shoot up more 20% in Hong Kong after China, the territory's main supplier of the commodity, bans the export of eggs from infected areas

• North Korea takes urgent measures to prevent bird flu from spreading into the country, North Korean state-run news agency KCNA reports

China 'confident'

"It remains an arduous task for China to prevent and control the disease," China's Ministry of Agriculture said in a statement.

But it added that "the Chinese Government is confident in its battle against the disease".

At a news conference in Beijing, Agriculture Vice-Minister Liu Jian said the difficulties were exacerbated by a diverse and scattered poultry industry, which last year produced some eight billion chickens.

"This has brought some problems in controlling this epidemic," Mr Liu said.

However, agriculture and health officials rebutted claims that China could be hiding human cases of bird flu. There have been concerns about China's reporting of disease since its attempt, later abandoned, to cover up the deadly Sars outbreak.

"There is no human patient in China," China's Vice-Health Minister Wang Longde was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency on Thursday.

"Since the Sars outbreak, the ministry of health has strengthened its surveillance system. If there is suspected human case, health authorities even at the county level will report it," Mr Wang said.