No bird flu epidemic has been detected among the 67 people who had been in close contact with a two-year-old patient in north China's Shanxi Province, said an official on Tuesday.

Three of them had been discharged from medical observation and the others had not been detected having bird flu virus, said the official from the provincial health bureau.

The patient surnamed Peng was still in a critical condition. Doctors had been trying to bring the virus under control.

Peng was found ill on Jan. 7 in central Hunan Province. Her grandparents took her to Luliang City of Shanxi on Jan. 11.

Peng is one of the four bird flu patients found in China in 2009. The other three have died of the virus, including a 16-year-old male student in Hunan Province on Tuesday morning, a 27-year-old woman surnamed Zhang in east Shandong Province on Saturday and a 19-year-old woman named Huang Yanqing who died in Beijing on Jan. 5.

(Xinhua News Agency January 20, 2009)