The Chinese Health Ministry has confirmed the death of a 27 year old woman from Jinan city of northern China's Shandong province from the H5N1 strain of bird flu. The national Center for Disease Control and Prevention said the woman surnamed Zhang who died on Saturday was the second victim of the bird flu this year.

Zhang contracted the H5N1 strain of bird flu and fell ill on January 5, and she was admitted in hospital when her condition deteriorated. The Shandong provincial government said all the people who had come into close contact with the victim have undergone medical tests and none of them have shown any symptoms of the virus.

In a second case of bird flu a 2 year old girl is in hospital in a serious condition. The child surnamed Peng fell ill while she was in Hunan province and on January 11 was taken back to her home province of Shanxi where she is in hospital in a critical condition. The health ministry confirmed she had contracted bird flu but has not disclosed how the girl contracted the deadly virus.

The Health Ministry said on its website, "All people who came in close contact with her are under strict medical observation ... Up to now, none of them, however, has showed any abnormal symptoms." The Agriculture Ministry has sent officials to both Hunan and Shanxi to check on the situation and has said that no reports of a bird flu outbreak have been reported from either of the provinces.

The first fatality involved a 19 year old woman who died from the virus in a Beijing hospital after coming in contact with ducks in a market in a neighboring province. She was the first case of bird flu reported since February last year and emergency checks of local poultry markets were ordered in an attempt to control the spread of the virus.

The H5N1 virus though largely restricted to birds is a deadly virus and health officials are concerned that the virus may mutate and be transferable from one person to another resulting in millions of deaths worldwide.