An official with the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday in Beijing urged China to provide more virus sequence information of H5N1 strain of bird flu to the international community.

China's Ministry of Agriculture shared five virus sequences last year but this year it has only shared virus sequence information from an outbreak of wild birds in Qinghai Province, northwest China, which occurred in May, said Dr, Shigeru Omi, WHO regional director for the Western Pacific Region.

Although there have been more than 30 reported outbreaks in domestic birds in 2005, none of those viruses have been made available to the international community so far, Omi said at a news conference in Beijing after visiting central China's Hunan Province this week.

"The Ministry of Agriculture officials have told me that they understand the importance of sharing viruses, but time is of the essence," he noted.

The ministry has made no timetable yet on how soon provide the information, said Omi.

On Tuesday, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) handed over two samples of human cases of H5N1 to WHO to help trace the virus' mutation and develop anti-retroviral drugs.

The two strains were isolated from the two fatalities from bird flu in east China's Anhui Province, said Dr. Julie Hall, coordinator of epidemic alert and response in WHO's Beijing office.

WHO will seek more virus samples from other Chinese human cases in provinces of Liaoning, Jiangxi and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region from the Ministry of Health, she told reporters.

China has reported six human cases of bird flu and about 30 outbreaks of bird flu in poultry this year. The government has pledged to spend 2 billion yuan (244 million US dollars) in battling the disease and vaccinate all its 5.2 billion domesticated birds. It has also strengthened monitoring and diagnosis of possible human cases.

On Thursday, the WHO delegation including Henk Bekedam, WHO's representative in China, Lee Chin-Kei, project officer of WHO in China and Roy Wadia, WHO's information officer in China congratulated Hunan for successfully treating the nine-year-old boy.

They met with local health officials in Hunan and called for the prompt and quick detection of human cases of bird flu and enhancement of the reporting of animal outbreaks.

Source: Xinhua