According to Xinhua News Agency, Chinese Health Minister Chen Zhu calls the hospitals for serious measures in health concerns regarding bird flu epidemic. He says for prevention and control of human bird flu cases, China faces a ‘grim’ situation.

Three deaths have been reported in the past two weeks. Four were infected with bird flu. Chen Zhu emphasizes on cooperation between health ministry and agriculture authorities. He says that precise diagnose and treatment is required.

Recent deaths included a toddler’s mother who was not checked for the causes of death. She was said to have severe pneumonia, but no further investigations were done to check whether it was bird flu or not.

The Chinese news paper that reported the death, mentions that she was in contact with poultry before her death. Her death without much investigations have raised many concerns, but vice director of virus control and prevention with the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shu Yuelong says, “The current cases are separate cases. There’s no connection.”

He further said, “But these cases warn us to improve prevention and supervision over the epidemic and ensure early detection and diagnosis when new cases are found.”

China is extensively vaccinating the population for bird flu, but some experts suspect that these vaccines can possibly be acting as a mask for the virus presence.

H5N1 is the virus that infects the birds largely and contains the ability to transfer in humans. It resurfaced in 2003 with a record of 391 patients and 247 deaths; records provided by WHO.