A 16-year-old male student died of bird flu in central China's Hunan Province on Tuesday morning, the third death from the disease so far this year, provincial health authorities reported.

The student, surnamed Wu, died at about 8:10 AM in Huaihua City, said an official from the Hunan provincial health bureau.

Wu fell ill on January 8 in southwestern Guizhou Province and was transferred to a hospital in Huaihua on January 16 after his condition worsened, the official said.

Wu tested positive for the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, according to test results on Monday from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The patient had contact with poultry, the official said, without elaborating. People who had close contact with the patient are under medical observation. No one has been found ill so far.

The provincial health department held a meeting on Tuesday morning, asking local governments to do their best to prevent seasonal infectious diseases from spreading.

"There is a possibility of human bird flu [spreading] in the near future, but it will not be a large-scale outbreak," said Shu Yuelong, deputy director of the center's Virus Control and Prevention Institute.

"The current cases are separate cases. There's no connection," he added.

Bird flu outbreaks tend to happen in winter and spring, when low temperatures create more favorable conditions for the influenza virus to spread, Shu said.

The fatality rate for bird flu patients is more than 60 percent. Since the symptoms are similar to the common and less deadly strains of flu, patients usually delay seeking treatment.

Shu suggested that patients with pneumonia symptoms tell doctors if they have had contact with poultry.

A 27-year-old woman surnamed Zhang died on Saturday of bird flu in east China's Shandong Province. She was China's second death from avian flu so far this year.

The Shandong provincial government inspected poultry farms and markets afterward but no bird flu case was found. The government Monday also asked hotels with star rankings to send guests with fevers to hospitals.

The first death this year was a 19-year-old woman named Huang Yanqing who died in Beijing on January 5.

In the northern Shanxi Province, a 2-year-old girl surnamed Peng was also confirmed to be infected with the same virus on Saturday. The toddler was listed in critical condition and doctors have tried to bring the virus under control, local health officials said on Sunday.

(Xinhua News Agency January 20, 2009)