The Chinese Ministry of Health Sunday confirmed a 32-year-old man in Guangdong Province in South China to have died of bird flu.

The victim, identified by surname Lao in a report, is a jobless resident in Guangzhou City, capital of Guangdong. He showed symptoms of fever and pneumonia on Feb. 22 and died on March 2.

Lao's symptom onset followed several visits to an agricultural market, where he stayed long nearby a live poultry slaughtering site.

His samples tested H5N1 positive by the Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The provincial health department announced that he was a suspected human case of bird flu on Saturday.

On Sunday, the national CDC re-tested Lao's samples and also got positive results. The victim has been confirmed to be infected with bird flu in accordance with the standards of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Chinese official standards, said the ministry.

Those having close contacts with Lao have been put under medical observation by provincial health authorities. So far, no abnormal symptoms have been reported.

The ministry has informed the WHO of the case and the regions of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, as well as several countries.

The new case brought the total number of human cases of bird flu in China to 15. Previously, the country reported 14 cases, in which eight were fatal, two are under treatment and the other four have been discharged from hospital.

A total of 174 human cases of bird flu involving 94 deaths have been reported to the WHO as of March 1, according to the WHO's website.

Environmental contamination by sick or dead birds might be a cause of human infection of bird flu in the areas where no outbreak in poultry is detected, Chinese health experts have said.

Judging from infections in different parts of the country, the major source of contagion is believed to have come from migratory birds, Health Minister Gao Qiang said while attending a plenary session of the National People's Congress (NPC) on Sunday.

Experts have also ruled out evidence to suggest that China's bird flu virus has mutated to a form that can spread between humans, as studies show the avian flu virus isolated from China's human cases still bears distinct avian features far different from the human flu virus.

"There is no human to human transmission of bird flu in China," Gao told the China Daily.

Raising public awareness is the priority to fight bird flu in China currently, while the government has intensified surveillance on migratory birds, poultry as well as pneumonia cases of unknown cause, said Zhong Nanshan, a noted disease control expert.

In rural areas, people still have weak sense of detecting bird flu and suspecious pneumonia cases, said Zhong at a group discussion of deputies to the Tenth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which is in its annual session in Beijing.

No need to worry too much even if the virus mutated to a form transmissible among people, as long as people give timely reporting, take timely quarantine measures and seek timely treatment, said Zhong, "therefore, nationwide publicity of knowledge needs to be enhanced."

Editor: Yan