cover-up in China

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Expert says bird flu has killed 300 people in China

18:27 24 November 2005 
NewScientist.com news service 
Debora MacKenzie

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Read of further developments to this story, here. 
A respected Japanese scientist, who works with the World Health Organization, says 300 people have died of H5N1 bird flu in China, including seven cases caused by human-to-human transmission

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Is China hiding avian influenza?
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(Dec. 10, 2005)
By KATE WALKER
UPI Correspondent 

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- There is growing concern that China may not be as open in its reporting of avian-influenza outbreaks as originally believed. 

Guan Yi, a virologist from the University of Hong Kong, was reported in Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper as saying: "I don't know if they are brave enough to admit that they have the virus in every corner of the country. 

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By Shane Harris
January/February 2006  pp. 38-43 (vol. 62, no. 01) � 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

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Unconfirmed reports that more than 120 people have died from the avian flu in western China increase concerns--and significantly raise the stakes--of a Chinese government cover-up. If true, the consequences could be grave."
So began a June 2005 e-mail dispatched by two renowned Asia watchers at the Manhattan-based Eurasia Group, a private intelligence shop that monitors the globe for impending political crises and has a history of spotting disease outbreaks before the world press. More than 100 deaths was "grave" because such a high fatality rate suggested that avian flu had mutated out of its zoonotic state (spreading among birds and livestock) and was being transmitted human-to-human: the requisite stepping-stone to a global pandemic.
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WHO Avian Influenza Expert Says 300 Dead In China
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(Nov. 25, 2005)
Dr. Masato Tashiro, a Japanese WHO consultant, believes that China has had 300 human deaths from avian influenza and is hiding the true extent of the disease from the rest of the world. Dr. Masato Tashiro, Director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Influenza at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, and head of the Department of Virology of the National Institute of Infectious Disease (Japan), astonished colleagues with this information during a speech at a recent retirement dinner for a fellow virologist, Hans-Dieter Klenk.
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Official Chinese bird flu deaths could be 'tip of iceberg' 

Updated 11:00 28 November 2005 
NewScientist.com news service 
Debora MacKenzie

Virologists consider the relative absence of human cases of bird flu in China unusual, given its widespread infection in birds. China has reported 22 poultry outbreaks in 10 provinces all across the country since mid-October 2005, the latest being on Friday.

The potential problem of underreporting may not only be technical. There are also claims that Chinese maskmanal personnel have been arrested for trying to report cases. China enforced severe restrictions on the investigation and reporting of suspected cases of bird flu in June 2005.