Respite from the bird flu crisis: Chinese Official says high Risk Period is "Over"

According to a senior Guangdong health official of China the tide has ebbed and has declared an end to this year's peak human bird flu season in the province.

But as a damper this claim was brushed aside by other health specialists.

The senior health official was Luo Huiming, director of the Guangdong Centre for Disease Control's Epidemic Disease Prevention and Cure Research Institute.

He said, "The weather has begun to get warmer and lowered the chances of the H5N1 virus surviving and being transmitted. Therefore the high-risk period for people catching the disease is over."

But Zhong Nanshan, a SARS expert and head of the Guangdong Research Institute for Respiratory Diseases said, "It is too early to make such a statement."