The World Health Organisation will send a mission to an eastern Chinese province that has reported two human deaths from the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, a spokesman said on Thursday.

China said on Wednesday that a second person had died of H5N1 in Anhui province, bringing to three the total number of confirmed cases in the world's largest poultry producing nation.

The third person, a nine-year-old boy living in southern Hunan province, recovered. His dead sister is a suspected case.

"It is entirely possible that more human cases will crop up now and then across China as outbreaks in poultry continue and as bird flu continues to be endemic in the environment," said Roy Wadia, WHO spokesman in Beijing.

"We are to go on an Anhui mission in connection with the first confirmed case but now that this has also happened, it's likely this will be part of the Anhui mission as well," Wadia added, referring to the second reported death.

The trip had been approved and would leave "sooner rather than later", he said. The WHO earlier this month sent a mission to Hunan province.

Xinhua news agency, quoting the Health Ministry, said the Anhui woman had developed fever and pneumonia-like symptoms on Nov. 11 after contact with sick and dead poultry. She died on Nov. 22.
A poultry worker from Anhui died of bird flu on Nov. 10.

"It's still early days in terms of human cases being found in China," Wadia added. "There isn't that much experience perhaps in dealing with possible human cases, and further support might be needed more now than perhaps later."

China has already culled more than 20 million birds this year to contain the spread of avian influenza and has reported 21 outbreaks since mid-October in nine regions and provinces, from the far southwest to the frigid northeast.

Anhui has already ordered all domestic poultry to be raised in pens or cages to curb potentially fatal human contact with bird flu and to stop chickens coming into contact with infected wild birds.

The latest outbreak occurred in the western region of Xinjiang at a family farm when 2,000 birds died on Nov. 15, but H5N1 was not confirmed until Wednesday, the Ministry of Agriculture said in a statement on its Web site (www.agri.gov.cn).

Authorities have culled 84,000 birds within a 3 km (2 mile) radius of the outbreak, the ministry said, in line with standard practice.

China has brought in police and army units to hold back the spread of bird flu, and has threatened fines and other punishments for local officials and people who cover up disease outbreaks or obstruct prevention efforts.

The government has also announced plans to vaccinate billions of birds and state media has said that a human vaccine is ready for clinical trials.

H5N1 has killed nearly 70 people in Asia since late 2003 -- mainly in Vietnam and Thailand. But the real fear is that it will mutate and acquire the ability to pass from human to human, causing a global pandemic.

PHOTO CAPTION

Chickens scratch in the dirt alongside a road in Nanzhuang village, Anhui province. (AFP)