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BEIJING - A 31-year-old Chinese woman has died of bird flu, becoming the country's fourth victim of the disease this year, the state Xinhua news agency said on Saturday.
The woman fell ill on January 10 after visiting a poultry market and died early on Friday in northwest China's Xinjiang region, Xinhua said, citing local health authorities.
Tests confirmed she was suffering from the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus, it said.
The woman was China's third avian flu victim in seven days -- a 16-year-old boy died on Tuesday in the central province of Hunan and a 27-year-old woman succumbed to the disease last Saturday in the eastern province of Shandong.
The first fatality of 2009 occurred on January 5 when a 19-year-old woman died in Beijing, while a two-year-old girl who fell critically ill with the disease in Shandong was on Friday said to be out of danger.
The latest cases have prompted fears of a bird flu outbreak during next week's Lunar New Year holiday, when many of China's 1.3 billion people hit the roads and consume poultry in vast quantities.
China's agriculture ministry warned earlier this week of an increased risk as poultry sales rose ahead of the holiday period.
But the health ministry sought to calm fears, noting that the recent cases were spread across the country.
"There is no epidemiological connection between them; they are sporadic cases," the ministry said in a statement.
Scientists have long feared the virus could mutate to a form that could jump easily from human to human, potentially sparking a global pandemic.
China is considered one of the nations most at risk from bird flu epidemics because it has the world's biggest poultry population and many chickens in rural areas are kept close to humans.
The total number of reported deaths in China since the virus re-emerged in 2003 now stands at 24.
The World Health Organisation says about 250 people have died from bird flu worldwide since 2003.
- AFP/ir
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