Chinese agriculture officials have issued an alert against bird flu after a 19-year-old woman died of the disease in Beijing.

Workers disinfected the Yanjiaoxinggong market in Langfang, Hebei Province neighboring Beijing, on Wednesday morning. The woman bought nine ducks at the market on December 19 and died of bird flu on Monday in a Beijing hospital.

The market's five shops selling live poultry have been closed.

The government of Sanhe City, where the market is located and under the jurisdiction of Langfang, has set up an emergency group headed by the city's Communist Party chief Li Gang to deal with bird flu prevention, quarantine and market regulation issues.

Local health authorities have examined 15 people engaged in the live poultry trade in the market, and all of them were free of the disease. The authorities also surveyed city residents who had been diagnosed with fever and all poultry farms, and found no problems.

Meanwhile, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Agriculture issued an order to intensify the monitoring of live poultry trade, and experts have begun an inspection campaign at the city's slaughterhouses and poultry farms.

No domestic fowl were kept within 10 km of the Sanjianfangdong Village of the Chaoyang District in Beijing, where the dead woman lived, said municipal officials.

The city government had received no reports of abnormal conditions or events regarding poultry.

The Beijing Municipal Health Bureau said Tuesday 116 people, including the patient's 14 family members and neighbors and 102 medical workers, had been in close contact with the patient. One nurse who had been in contact with the patient suffered from fever. The nurse has recovered.

China reported the case to the World Health Organization and informed the health authorities of the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions.

(Xinhua News Agency January 7, 2009)