This is a bad sign

Chinese officials revealed that pigs have tested positive for bird flu in Xiangtan County, Hunan Province, where a bird epidemic is raging and one human death, possibly from bird flu, has already occurred, reported Phoenix TV on November 10. Hunan Province Bureau of Agriculture officials tested samples of pig oral secretions to assess the possibility that bird flu was responsible for the death of a 12-year old girl on October 17th. The girl was cremated the same day that she died, and her ill brother is still in quarantine.

If this is true it shows that the H5N1 strain has jumped to pigs and its lethality in humans is not limited to the very old or the very young. Epidemiologically this greatly increases the likelihood that the virus could establish a reservoir in multiple species and greatly increase its ability to infect humans. China needs to close down that Province.