Mental Health

China Reports Second Bird Flu Related Death for the Year

By Jennifer Broderick | Update Date: Feb 23, 2013 01:28 PM EST

Chinese authorities reported Saturday that a man from the southwestern part of the populous country is the second person to die from the H5N1 bird flu virus this year alone.

In the most recent case, a 31-year-old man died of organ failure in the south-central Chinese city of Guiyang, according to China's official Xinhua news agency. Guiyang is also the city where the bird flu's first victim for 2013 died on Feb. 13, a 21-year old woman. The report notes that both victims came into close contact with birds which are considered the most common way to contract the virus.

Xinhua reports that already 110 people who had contact with the patients have been released from quarantine. The bird flu is circulated in poultry and birds and has already infected 600 humans in the last decade and 360 of those infected. In all of 2012, there were 32 cases worldwide.

China is considered to be at a greater risk from  H5N1 bird flu epidemics as it has the world's biggest poultry and chicken population in rural areas living so close to large groups of people.

Cambodia has already reported seven human cases of the H5N1 virus this year, all of them fatal except one. Cambodia is experiencing the worst outbreak of the virus this year since the disease was first identified in Jan. 2004.  The country has reported 21 cases and 19 of them fatal have ended in deaths since 2005, according to the Associated Press.

The World Health Organization says there have been 10 cases of H5N1 reported worldwide since the start of the year.

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