A 16-year-old boy in Hunan province is seriously ill after contracting the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, the Ministry of Health said Monday.

The teenager, surnamed Wu, is the fourth confirmed case this year, it said on its website.

A native of Guizhou province, Wu fell ill at home on Jan 8. On Friday, he was admitted to hospital in Huaihua, Hunan, after his condition worsened, the ministry said.

It did not say if the teenager had received any treatment in his hometown or explain why he was taken to a Hunan hospital.

People close to Wu were given medical checks but no one else was found to have symptoms of the flu, the ministry said.

Prior to the announcement of Wu's case, a ministry official had forecast that more people would become infected with bird flu, but said the risk of an epidemic was low.

Winter is the peak season for the flu, so the chances of people becoming infected are higher, Shu Yuelong, director of the flu control center under the national Center for Disease Control and Prevention, was quoted by the People's Daily as saying yesterday.

The likelihood of families being infected is on the rise, he said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday also warned of the rising threat of bird flu in China and urged people to "maintain normal precautions" against it.

With the Chinese New Year holiday less than a week away, people will be "more exposed to birds as poultry consumption rises", it said in a statement.

People are therefore urged to "ensure all poultry is well cooked and always wash their hands after contact with raw meat", it said.

Bird flu claimed its second victim in China this year, when a 27-year-old woman surnamed Zhang from Jinan, Shandong's provincial capital, died on Saturday.

A 2-year-old girl surnamed Peng from Shanxi province who contracted the virus and fell ill on Jan 7 is still "in a serious condition" in hospital, the Ministry of Health said.

On Jan 5, Huang Yanqing, a 19-year-old woman in Beijing, became the first Chinese to be killed by the H5N1 virus this year.

Authorities in Shandong and Shanxi said they have stepped up efforts to combat the spread of the virus.

The Shanxi health bureau has launched a slew of emergency measures to counter the risk of bird flu in the wake of the new case.

Provincial cities have been asked to keep a close watch for new cases, while authorities in Luliang, the city in which the 2-year-old girl lived; and Taiyuan, the provincial capital where she is now in hospital, have set up a daily reporting system.

The bureau has urged health workers to try every means possible to save the girl's life, and also reminded doctors to take precautions against potential infection from contact with the virus.

The Shanxi agricultural bureau has urged governments of all levels to examine and eliminate potential sources of the virus, especially at chicken farms.

Since its reemergence in China in 2003, the H5N1 strain has claimed 22 lives from 33 cases.

The WHO has set its global pandemic alert level at Phase 3, indicating "no or very limited possibility of human-to-human transmission".

Although the H5N1 virus has remained largely confined to birds, experts fear it could mutate and be transmitted between people, which would put millions of lives at risk around the world.

(China Daily January 20, 2009)