"�This is a psychologically telling moment for a country that has never had bird flu cases in the past in humans,� said Mr. Wadia. �This will drive home to citizens across the country that this can happen in our own backyards. It's a very real threat,�" according to Joe McDonald of The Independent.

There is fear that humans dying en masse throughout China could occur because the population is so very close daily to birds. That is why there has been an expanded vaccination of birds throughout the nation.

Officials there have confirmed its first human cases of "the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu as it raced to vaccinate billions of poultry in an effort to contain the virus."

Other nations are taking precautions worldwide with health experts meeting daily to figure out what vaccine will work to oust the virus if it strikes human beings. However, there is no guarantee that a vaccine can be come upon since no one knows what a mutant virus will be like when it does appear. Therefore, stockpiling present vaccines may in the end prove futile, though stockpiling has become an alarm reaction in many areas.

"The health ministry reported two confirmed cases: a 24-year-old woman, a poultry worker, in Anhui province who died on 1 November and a nine-year-old boy from Hunan who fell ill but recovered, the official Xinhua news agency said yesterday. It said the boy's sister, 12, who died last month, was a suspected case.

"China had said the girl, her brother and a teacher who fell ill at the same time were negative for H5N1. But it later asked the World Health Organization to help re-examine the case.

"Chinese investigators believe the girl died of bird flu but her body was cremated and couldn't be tested, said Roy Wadia, a WHO spokesman in Beijing. There was no word on the status of the teacher."

US President George W. Bush has warned Americans already concerning the possible pandemic. Other freedom-based national leaders have followed with like pronouncements.

China officialdom has concluded that it is inevitable that human infection will occur in that country. In response to that fear, millions of birds have been destroyed.

This week alone the government has announced to media that 14 billion farm birds would be vaccinated.

Australia has responded to bird flu fears by stating that it may be that persons flying into the country will be housed in airplane hangers where medical experts will examine them. If there is any question as to the health of passengers, they will not be permitted to enter the country.

"Around Asia, the H5N1 strain has killed at least 64 people, two-thirds of them in Vietnam. The virus remains hard for people to catch and is still essentially a disease in birds."

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