How does China track and report bird flu statistics

Submitted by fortheinfo on Tue, 06/05/2007 - 1:14pm.

You have to wonder about China sometimes. They are close to, if not ground zero for the bird flu pandemic, but their reporting leaves alot to be desired. For instance, a Chinese soldier died in the province of Fujian . No big deal, because they reported it right?

Wrong.

The death of the soldier was reported on May 30, 2007. His diagnosis was confired through testing on May 23, 2007, but he was initially hospitalized on May 14, 2007. At best there was a 7 day lag time in notification, at worst it was 16 days.

It's highly questionable that in this day and age of instant communication that China would sit on a case of this. Contrast this to the reports in Vietnam that come out one or two days after diagnosis.

The World Health Organization is partially to blame for this, as they don't have a set of standards for reporting the contaminations. Well, they do, but there is no time limit.

A website needs to be established where nations can report three types of bird flu problems:

Initial suspected infection.

Confirmed diagnosis.

Final status. Recovery or death?

Using a site like this would eliminate the lag time between suspicion of infection and confirmation.