우려가 현실로 사람에서 조류독감

Workers wait at a disinfection checkpoint at the entrance to Qitaizi Village, in Heishan, in China's

northeast Liaoning province Wednesday Nov. 16, 2005. The village was the site of one of four recent

outbreaks of bird flu in Liaoning province. China announced on Tuesday it would vaccinate its entire

poultry stock of 14 billion birds in an effort to prevent further outbreaks of the bird flu virus.

(AP Photo/Greg Baker)

China Confirms First Human Bird-Flu Cases

By JOE McDONALD, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 47 minutes ago

BEIJING - China reported its first human cases of bird flu on the mainland Wednesday, including at least one fatality, as health workers armed with vaccine and disinfectant raced to inoculate billions of chickens and other poultry in a massive campaign to contain the virus.

The World Health Organization confirmed the virulent strain experts fear could cause a worldwide flu pandemic has

now infected humans in the world's most populous nation.

China's Health Ministry reported confirmed cases of infection with the deadly H5N1 strain in a poultry worker, who died,

and a 9-year-old boy, who fell ill in central Hunan province but recovered, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

It said the boy's 12-year-old sister, who died, was recorded as a suspected case.

Experts worry the virus could spread and mutate in China due to its huge poultry flocks and their contact with humans.

It also has migration routes for geese and other wild birds that might carry the disease.

"This is a psychologically telling moment for a country that has never had bird flu cases in the past in humans," said Roy Wadia, a WHO spokesman in Beijing. "This will drive home to citizens across the country that this can happen in our own backyards," he said. "It's a very real threat."

Officials had warned a human infection in China was inevitable after the country suffered 11 outbreaks in poultry over the

past month, which prompted authorities to destroy millions of birds.

Elsewhere in Asia, the H5N1 strain has infected at least 126 people and killed at least 64 of them since 2003, two-thirds

of them in Vietnam.