The Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday that it had confirmed suspected cases of a deadly strain of bird flu in seven more locations, including Shanghai.

　　The cases were confirmed in Nanhui, an eastern suburb of Shanghai; in two places in southwestern China's Yunnan Province; in the northern city of Tianjin; and in three locations in Guangdong Province, Jia Youling, a ministry official, said in a statement.

　　All cases involved birds. No cases of bird flu in humans have been reported in China.

　　Authorities in Shenzhen, a city in Guangdong bordering Hong Kong, have confirmed that bird flu killed black swans that recently died there, said the statement.

　　Until now, most cases of bird flu have involved poultry, but bird reserves have been closed as a precaution.

　　The Health Ministry reported yesterday that it had put 7,793 people in areas hit by bird flu under medical supervision.

　　"So far, all reported test results were negative and there are no suspected or confirmed human bird flu infection reports on the Chinese mainland," the ministry said.

　　The Chinese mainland reported its first confirmed bird flu case on January 27 in the southwestern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

　　Pang Jijun, an administrator at a farm in Guangxi, said he inoculates his birds frequently and quarantines newborn chicks.

　　Many experts in China and abroad say poultry diseases are endemic to this country, but Pang scoffed at the notion.

　　"I had never even heard of bird flu, and I've been raising chickens longer than some of you have been alive," he told visiting reporters from news organizations in the United States, Britain, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong.

　　"We have very tight controls here," said Pang, chairman of the Good Phoenix Farm Corp, which has 210,000 chickens in Nanning, capital city of the autonomous region.

　　Reporters were also taken on Thursday to villages that had been cleared of chickens and other poultry.

　　Officials described measures like disinfecting trucks by driving them though pools of bleach as they enter farms.

　　China has slaughtered more than 200,000 birds since its first case was found on January 27 in a dead duck in the town of Dingdang.

　　Dressed in head-to-toe protective suits, the reporters visited an affected farm, where a farmer described the death of his ducks.

　　Huang Shengde recalled he woke up one day and found that 200 ducks - nearly a fifth of his flock - had died.

　　He said he'd called the county veterinarian and that he's been under quarantine since, with his temperature taken daily and all his meals delivered by health officials. "My health is very good," he said."I've had no problems whatsoever."

　　Bi Qiang, chairman of the region's Animal Illness Prevention Command Office, acknowledged that he didn't know why new cases keep popping up despite mass culls and inoculations.

　　"It could have been transmitted by birds or their droppings, but that's just a suspicion," he said.

　　Elsewhere in Dingdang, sugar farmer Lu Shouhai said he'd kept about a dozen chickens in the house he shares with his wife and children before the government killed the birds as a precaution.

　　"The chickens live downstairs, and the people live upstairs," he said in his tidy house.

　　He said he planned to bring chickens back into his home once the government gives the all-clear.

　　"How can you not raise chickens?" he said.

　　In Taiwan, authorities yesterday ordered the slaughter of 11,000 more chickens infected with a mild version of avian flu, and officials reported an outbreak of the virus at a farm raising pet birds.

　　Officials ordered the pet bird farm in southern Tainan County to kill about 300 birds, including Swinhoe's pheasants - a once-endangered indigenous bird with a short white crest and a blue head - said Yeh Ying, an official at the Council of Agriculture.

　　The council also said 11,000 chickens would be killed at a farm in the central county of Changhua.

　　"We'll have the birds slaughtered and the farms disinfected," Yeh said. "Farms in a radius of 3 kilometers will be closely monitored for six months," she said.

　　The culling was ordered at the two farms after test results showed some of the birds were infected with H5N2, a less dangerous strain of bird flu that has not jumped to humans.

　　(The Associated Press)