China's Ministry of Health on Monday urged the country's health system to continue the prevention and control of bird flu in humans.

Health departments should continue leading and guiding the prevention and control of bird flu, strengthen surveillance, stafftraining and lab testing, and rigidly carry on the reporting and screening of pneumonia cases of unknown cause, said the ministry at a teleconference.

Treatment of human cases of bird flu should be improved and information sharing and coordination with other departments are needed, according to the ministry.

The ministry has intensified prevention and control efforts of bird flu since last autumn, such as improving emergency response plans, medical staff training and surveillance, and stockpiling materials for possible outbreaks.

China has reported 15 human cases of bird flu. Ten of the victims died. The bird flu has infected 177 people and killed 98 around the world, according to the World Health Organization.

This year, China has reported three outbreaks of bird flu among poultry, a sharp decrease compared with 49 outbreaks in the same period of 2004, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

A total of 35 outbreaks of bird flu have been reported in China since 2005, which sickened 194,000 fowl and killed 186,000 of them. About 22.8 million fowl were slaughtered to prevent the disease from spreading. All the outbreaks have been contained, the Ministry of Agriculture claimed.

The central government vowed last year to vaccinate all the poultry in the country to curb the disease. The country has provided 2.97 billion vaccines to local departments, said Jia Youling, national chief veterinary officer, at a press conference on Saturday.

As the immunization policy is carried out properly, there is only a minor possibility for large-scale outbreak of bird flu this spring, Jia told the press conference.

(Xinhua News Agency March 21, 2006)