Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Bird flu has stricken China once again: Beijing today admitted the outbreak of new infection among poultry in the northern Xinjiang province.

The official Xinhua newsagency said China's Ministry of Agriculture confirmed that poultry on a farm in Hetian county had died from the virus. Traces of the H5N1 virus – the carrier of bird flu – were found in their animals. The report does not specify how many birds have been infected.

The Agriculture Ministry said it had already dispatched experts to Hetian to control the outbreak; right now they are inspecting and disinfecting people and vehicles passing through of the stricken area.

China has reported about 40 outbreaks of bird flu in birds across a dozen provinces over the past year; 12 people have died, according to official data.

Since late 2003 – the year when bird flu exploded – more than 120 people, mostly in Asia, have died from the disease.

Experts fear contact between infected birds and human beings could lead the virus to mutate, changing the type of routes of transmission of infection. At the moment, there is no proof of direct human transmission: given its airborne spread, should the H5N1 virus mutate into such a form, a bird flu pandemic could fellow.