Beijing, January 19:

A woman in eastern China has died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu, the Health Ministry said, the second death from the virus this year as the country’s biggest festive season approaches and contact with poultry increases.

The woman, whose surname was Zhang, lived in Jinan, the capital of Shandong province. She died on Saturday, the ministry said on its website late Sunday.

The notice did not say how Zhang, 27, who fell sick on January 5, contracted the virus.

A man who answered the telephone at the Shandong health department refused to comment.

The fatality comes less than two weeks after a 19-year-old woman died from the H5N1 virus in a Beijing hospital after buying and cleaning ducks in a market in a neighbouring province. It was the first death from bird flu since last February.

Meanwhile, a two-year-old girl was in critical condition in the northern province of Shanxi with bird flu. Ta Kung Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper backed by the mainland’s communist authorities, reported that the girl’s mother died recently of what doctors “highly suspected” was also bird flu. The paper did not give any other details, and Shanxi health officials refused to comment on the mother’s death.

The girl tested positive for H5N1 after falling ill on January 7, the Health Ministry said.

The cases come at a worrisome time for Chinese authorities as tens of millions of people are on the move between cities and rural hometowns for Lunar New Year, the country’s biggest holiday, which begins on January 26.

Dishes prepared from freshly slaughtered chicken and duck feature prominently in celebration feasts. That means a potentially greater risk of exposure to sick birds as people shop in markets and handle poultry or when the birds are transported to be sold, said the World Health Organisation’s Beijing office.