THE HUMAN death toll from the bird flu epidemic sweeping through Asian poultry flocks rose to 16 yesterday as China, a major focus of concern, admitted it faced a tough fight to defeat the disease.

?Some parts of our animal disease prevention system are weak and vulnerable and the public has limited knowledge about the disease and ways to prevent,? China?s Agriculture Ministry said.

?It remains an arduous task for China to prevent and control the disease,? it said in a statement ahead of a news conference.

The confession from China, castigated last year for covering up the SARS outbreak for several months, came as Vietnam said a 16-year-old southern girl had become its 11th bird flu victim.

?We have conducted the tests in our hospital and the results showed the girl from Soc Trang province had died from the bird flu,? Tran Tinh Hien, deputy director of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City, told Reuters.

The other five died in Thailand, which said it had two more suspected cases, a two-year old boy from Khon Kaen province, northeast of Bangkok, and a 67-year-old man from the central province of Chainat.

Thailand, which also has another two probable bird flu deaths, now has 19 suspected cases. Vietnam and Thailand are the only ones among 10 countries hit by bird flu to have reported cases in humans and almost all of them came from direct contact with infected chickens.

But experts say there is a remote chance the virulent H5N1 avian flu virus could infect a person with human flu and create a new strain which could set off a pandemic in a world population with no immunity to it.

Strict orders

If that were to happen, China, which raised eight billion chickens last year, mostly on small, cramped farms in close contact with farmers, might well be the place, experts say.

Twelve of China?s 31 provinces have confirmed or suspected outbreaks and the government said local officials had strict orders to report any sign of human contagion promptly, openly and fully ? echoing what became Beijing?s catch phrase in its war on SARS after the initial cover-up last year. The Agriculture Ministry said more than 1.2 million chickens had been culled in China, a small proportion of the 50 million poultry the UN?s Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates have been slaughtered.

Thailand says it has culled 25.9 million poultry in mass slaughters the FAO says are the most effective means of stamping the disease out. Chief government spokesman Jakrapob Penkair said it was working.

?Our progress in fighting the disease is satisfactory,? he told reporters. ?The situation is improving steadily.?

He said Thailand?s ?red zones? the five-km area around a confirmed outbreak within which all poultry must be slaughtered ? had dropped to 10 in five of its 76 provinces. Last week, the government reported more than 140 red zones in 29 provinces.

So confident is it that the outbreak is under control, the Thai government is organising ?chicken-eating fairs? across the country on Saturday in a bid to convince Thais that the experts are right to say well-cooked chicken and eggs pose no danger.

Everything will be free

Prime Minister Thaksin Shina-watra will fry up chicken at the main event in Bangkok, where the crowds will be serenaded by crooners nicknamed ?Chicken?, ?Duck? and ?Bird?.

?The prime minister will prepare stir-fried chicken with eggs and cook everything really, really well,? promised Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan. ?We must educate people on what is really true about bird flu.?

Still, Australia is plugging holes in its formidable barriers to potential foreign diseases unknown to the indigenous wildlife on the island continent and European Union governments are drawing up contingency plans.

They include mass culls, transport curbs and farm disinfection. Singapore, hit hard by SARS last year as the disease leaped the species barrier to spread to 30 countries and kill nearly 800 people, is also taking increasingly tough steps to stay free of bird flu.

It banned small-scale chicken farming in a major rural community from Friday, buying about 700 chickens and ducks from farmers and saying all remaining birds must be caged to prevent infection from wild migratory birds.

Jonathan Ansfield Christina Toh-Pantin