By Lucy Hornby BEIJING, Feb 6 (Reuters) - China's Ministry of Agriculture on Friday defended its bird flu vaccination programme, stating there had been no outbreaks since last June despite a number of human cases, some fatal, this year. Human cases and the appearance of dead wild birds in Hong Kong have caused some experts and media reports to question whether the virus is widespread but undetected in China. Five people died of bird flu in China in January, in regions far removed from each other and in which there were no reported cases of bird flu in birds. Three others have become ill, of which two have recovered, a toddler infected in Hunan and a young man in Guizhou. Apart from the discovery of a case during routine sampling in eastern China's Jiangsu province in December, Chinese testing has not detected any bird flu since June. The Ministry of Agriculture said in a report on its website that the strain found in Jiangsu was a variant, requiring the modification of the vaccine programme in the surrounding provinces of Zhejiang, Shanghai, Anhui and Shandong. Meanwhile, two ducks and a goose found in Hong Kong have tested positive for H5N1, the strain of bird flu that can infect humans. Hong Kong closed its Mai Po nature preserve as a precaution for 21 days from Friday, after a dead grey heron found there also tested positive for bird flu. Hong Kong authorities are still testing 14 other dead birds found last week on Lantau Island. "We're checking water currents" to see if the birds were washed ashore from mainland China, a government spokeswoman said. While H5N1 rarely infects people, experts fear it could mutate into a form that people could easily pass to one another, sparking a pandemic that could kill tens of millions and topple the global economy. China has vaccinated aggressively since bird flu first reappeared among humans in Asia in 2003. But vaccination does not eliminate the virus. In 2008, China reported six outbreaks of bird flu that killed 9,000 birds and led to the culling of 590,000 birds.(Additional reporting by Tan Ee Lyn in Hong Kong; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
A woman cleans vegetable in a partially dried-up pond on the outskirts of Yingtan, Jiangxi province February 6, 2009. Drought-hit areas of northern central China are likely to see some rain ...
