Bird flu death not from human-human spread: China

The strain of H5H1 bird flu that killed a Chinese man cannot spread among people, a health agency said Monday, appealing for calm after the country`s first reported case of the disease in humans in 18 months.

Genetic analysis indicated the virus spread directly from poultry to the victim, who died Saturday in the southern city of Shenzhen, the Shenzhen Disease Control Center said in a statement reported by the official Xinhua News Agency.

"Though it is highly pathogenic to human beings, the virus can not spread among people," the statement said, according to Xinhua. "There is no need for Shenzhen citizens to panic."

H5N1 rarely infects humans and usually only those who come into close contact with diseased poultry. Scientists are closely watching the virus for any signs it is becoming more easily transmissible from human to human.

A 39-year-old bus driver surnamed Chen developed a fever Dec. 21 and was hospitalized Dec. 25, according to an earlier statement by city and provincial authorities. The provincial health department said Health Ministry experts confirmed Saturday that he was infected with H5N1.
Xinhua said health authorities still were trying to figure out where he was infected.

The Guangdong health department has said 120 people who had close contact with Chen have not developed any abnormal symptoms.

The World Health Organization says globally 336 people have died from 573 confirmed bird flu cases since 2003. Of these, 40 cases were in China, 26 of which were fatal.

Chen`s death was a week after two dead birds tested positive for the virus in Hong Kong, which is just across a river from Shenzhen.

More than 19,000 birds at a Hong Kong market were slaughtered and imports and sales of live poultry were banned for three weeks after a chicken carcass tested positive for H5N1. Lab tests later confirmed that an Oriental magpie robin found dead on Dec. 17 was also infected.

China`s last reported human case of H5N1 was in June 2010. A pregnant 22-year-old woman from central Hubei province died after being exposed to sick and dead poultry.

Chinese herb mix help ease menopausal hot flashes

A mix of certain traditional Chinese herbs thought to have weak estrogen-like activity might help ease menopausal hot flashes, a small clinical trial suggests.

But the herbal mix, dubbed Jiawei Qing`e Fang, is not widely available. And while the new study suggested some benefits, it had enough limitations that the true effects of the herbs are still unclear, according to an expert not involved in the work.

For the study, reported in the journal Menopause, researchers in China randomly assigned 72 women to either take Jiawei Qing`e Fang everyday for eight weeks, or use a placebo mix of starches that were made to look, taste and smell like the herbs.

All of the women were relatively young -- between the ages of 45 and 55 -- and either had irregular menstrual periods, or had recently stopped menstruating. At the outset, all said they were having at least 14 bouts of hot flashes per week.

After eight weeks, women on the herbal mix showed a 70 percent drop in their hot flash "score" -- which reflects how often and how severe their hot flashes were. The placebo group also showed a big, though not as dramatic, improvement: a 56 percent decline in hot flash scores.

The benefit in the placebo group may reflect psychological effects (that is, women who thought they were receiving the real thing felt better), according to senior researcher Dr. Xiumei Gao, of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in China.

But the current findings suggest that Jiawei Qing`e Fang has benefits beyond the placebo, Gao told Reuters Health in an email.

There`s also some lab research suggesting that the trio of herbs used in the mixture has estrogen-like activity -- which, in theory, could help cool hot flashes.

The mix used in this study was based on a traditional Chinese preparation known as Qing E Fang, whose first recorded use for menopause symptoms goes back more than 1,000 years, according to Gao.

The researchers used two herbs from that formulation -- cortex eucommia and fructus psoraleae -- plus a third, called Salvia miltiorrhiza that is used in Chinese medicine to treat "gynecologic diseases."

The study is interesting, said Dr. Gregory A. Plotnikoff, director of the Institute for Health and Healing at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis.

But there are also a number of important limitations to the research, according to Plotnikoff, who researches herbal medicine, including its use for menopause symptoms.

For one, he told Reuters Health in an email, the placebo response in this study "is huge in comparison to most clinical trials and every menopausal hot flash trial I have ever reviewed."

And that raises questions, Plotnikoff said -- including whether women in the study could have been reporting hot flash improvements in order to "prove something," or even to please the researchers.

He also said that the study was simply too small to know whether the statistically bigger improvement in the herb group was a real advantage over the placebo group. The difference was "barely" statistically significant, Plotnikoff said, and "could easily disappear" if a larger group had been studied.

Gao said that a further, larger trial is now underway to try to confirm the current findings.

But even if the herb mix proves to be better than a placebo, Plotnikoff questioned the appeal it would have. The herbs are thought to have estrogen-like activity, and many women want hot flash relief without hormonal effects.

Right now, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is considered the most effective therapy for severe hot flashes.

But its use sharply dropped after a large 2002 U.S. clinical trial found that women on hormones had higher rates of heart attack, stroke, breast cancer and blood clots than placebo users.

Experts now advise that if women use HRT for menopausal symptoms, they should take the lowest possible dose for the shortest time possible.

There are several herbal or "natural" products marketed for easing menopause symptoms, including black cohosh, soy, red clover and dong quai. But there is little evidence from clinical trials on whether they work, according to the North American Menopause Society.

Black cohosh is probably the best studied, but trials have come to mixed conclusions about whether it is helpful.

If hot flashes are not severe, experts say, simple steps like avoiding hot and spicy foods, turning down the thermostat, or relaxation techniques, such as yoga or meditation, may help.

For most women, hot flashes gradually get better with time.

Another issue with the current study, according to Plotnikoff, is that the women were fairly young and in the middle of transitioning to menopause -- a time when hot flashes are naturally highly variable.

Because of that, Plotnikoff said, data from such women would not be accepted by the US Food and Drug Administration as evidence of an effective hot flash remedy.

World`s largest medicinal botanic garden in China

A medicinal botanical garden in southwest China has been confirmed by Guinness World Records as the largest of its kind in the world, a garden official said Friday.

Located in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and spread over an area of 202 hectares (over 2 square kilometres), the garden has been confirmed to be containing the most varieties of medicinal plants and the largest cultivated area of medicinal plants in the world, Xinhua reported.

The garden, till date, has saved over 6,000 kinds of living medicinal plants (including more than 100 endangered varieties and over 30 new varieties), more than 3,200 kinds of medicinal plant seeds and 100,000 medicinal plant images.

Built in 1959 by Guangxi`s health department, its objective is to cultivate, collect and save medicinal plants besides conducting research.

The garden is expected to be built into an advanced international medicinal plants conservation base and a centre for traditional Chinese medicine culture and science.

Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region is one of China`s most undeveloped provinces. But it is known for its large variety of herbal medicines and the ethnic minority cultures of Zhuang and Yao.

A botanical garden is a well-tended area displaying a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names. It may contain special plant collections.

Traditional Chinese medicines can cure AIDS

Experts in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) have claimed that it has helped in the recovery of at least 17,000 HIV carriers and AIDS patients in China since 2004.

Speaking on the eve of World AIDS Day, which is observed on December 1, Wang Jian, deputy director of the TCM Center for AIDS Prevention and Treatment with the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said: "TCM performs as an effective supplement to Western therapy in terms of alleviating patients`` symptoms, including fever, cough, asthenia and diarrhea, thus making life easier for them."

According to the China Daily, China started to give AIDS patients free TCM therapy in a pilot project carried out among 2,300 patients in five provinces in 2004.

By last October, the projects had expanded to 19 provinces.

The TCM therapy is usually applied to carriers whose immune system is not too weak to receive the Western medication that is largely known as antiretroviral therapy; or to patients who suffer side effects from the therapies.

A biological indicator for this is CD4, a type of cell in the immune system. When a carrier``s CD4 count reaches 350 per cubic millimeter or below they will need western treatment.

According to Wang Jian, Chinese herbal medicines work differently from Western anti-HIV drugs. The Western therapies target blocking viral replication, but TCM therapy works towards increasing people``s immunity.

Wang said that Chinese government has allocated 220 million Yuan (34.49 million dollars) for TCM therapy research, and further efforts will be made to develop better treatment based on a combination of TCM and Western medicine.

By the end of 2011, China is estimated to have 780,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, including 154,000 patients with full-blown afflictions, official statistics show.

China's 1st "haunted house" spooks this Halloween

This Halloween, prepare to be scared in China.

The country's first Halloween haunted house attraction is spooking the crowds in Shanghai, with its creators hoping to cash in on the traditions of the ancient, but essentially Western, festival to commemorate the dead.

While China has a rich tradition of ghosts and ghouls of its own, Halloween is a non-event for most Chinese, who hold their own commemoration for the dead during the Qingming festival or Tomb-Sweeping Day usually marked in April.

But the creators of the "Shanghai Nightmare" attraction, 26-year-old American-Chinese Gan Quan and his girlfriend Xu Jiali, said it's about time Chinese got a taste of Halloween.

"I grew up in the United States and we have Halloween traditions. And over here, there's something missing," Gan, who came to Shanghai a year ago, told reporters.

"People party, they go drinking, they go to the bars, but there's still that one part of Halloween that didn't exist. And we thought, what a perfect way to combine our efforts than to put up a haunted house in Shanghai."

"Shanghai Nightmare" is set in a crumbling, century-old warehouse along Suzhou Creek and features more than 13 chambers filled with gory scenes, sound and light effects and actors dressed as ghosts and goblins that attack visitors.

Gan and Xu, who quit their jobs to dedicate themselves to the project, said they combined their engineering and art training to create the haunted house.

They declined to say how much it cost but said the attraction took a year to set up.

"Shanghai Nightmare" opened in late September and is set to spook the town until Halloween, or October 31.

But the organizers say they are considering staying open for longer due to strong demand, and perhaps set up another, bigger attraction next year.

"At least for the time being, the response from the public has been overwhelming," Xu said. "At first, we did not do very well in publicizing ourselves, so much fewer people came. But the people who came gave us good reviews and this led to all their friends knowing about this fun project."

Visitors pay between 98 yuan and 188 yuan ($14-$28) for tickets and some said it was definitely worth it.

"Previous haunted houses such as those in carnivals are not as well done as this one. The actors here very professional," said 22-year-old Huang Kai.

China built sea bridges six times as long in Half the time

While India’s first sealink in Mumbai took eight years to build, China built two sea bridges nearly six times as long, connecting Shanghai with nearby hubs, in about half the time — in three to five years each. During the eight years, work on Mumbai’s Sealink crawled and often stalled; in contrast, residents of Shanghai have began commuting through six tunnels under the Huangpu River that cuts through China’s largest city and financial capital in the last 10 years.

Eight more underwater tunnels are being built in Shanghai, the city Maharashtra’s politicians once promised Mumbai would transform into.

The tunnels are built in two years each. The average time required to finish the basic tunnelling: 10 months.

“In India, mobilising resources, equipment and workers requires 14 months compared to four or six months in China,” Lu Yuan Qiang, general manager (overseas department) of Shanghai Urban Construction Group Corporation, told HT in an exclusive interview. The Shanghai Urban Construction Group Corporation is part of a joint venture that’s building the nearly-finished 2.3-m tunnel linking the Delhi metro station to the airport.

“India has big room to improve,” said Lu, who has seen the Sealink and said it need not have taken so long to build.

In Shanghai, the world’s widest 8.9-km double-deck tunnel under the Yangtze River, with a six lane expressway plus metro line, is scheduled to open on October 1 — less than five years after the project began.

Infrastructure experts who have worked in both India and China say the sway of China’s authoritarian one-party rule, which makes it easy for bulldozers to raze settlements despite public protest, is not the only reason its boomtowns build infrastructure faster than Indian metros.

“The Shanghai municipal government pushes us to complete projects quickly and also supports us,” Lu said. “We have enough resources. Mobilisation, procurement, cash flow, everything is convenient in China.”

“In China, there is competition and pressure to complete on schedule,” said JJ Shrikhande, the Shanghai-based China head of Larsen & Toubro. “The availability of finance and resources is never a bottleneck in Chin and there are less bureaucratic delays as compared to India.”

The Shanghai Urban Construction Group is preparing tenders for the Chennai and Kolkata metro tunnels.

“Doing business in India is a little difficult for Chinese contractors,” said Lu. “There is discrimination. Work permits are hard to get and procedures for approvals take very long.”

China to build world's largest Amphibious aircraft

China will build the world's largest amphibious aircraft, as large as an Airbus A320, which could be used for tasks like emergency rescue and sea patrols, the state media reported on Thursday.

The development and production of the 'Dragon 600', intended to be the world's largest amphibious aircraft, has received government approval, Hu Haiyin, deputy general manager of AVIC General Aircraft Company Ltd. said.

Hu said the company has begun research on the proposed craft.

The Dragon 600, which would be as large as an Airbus 320, could be used for tasks such as emergency rescue, fighting forest fires and sea patrols, Xinhua news agency reported.

Hu said that market research indicated that 60 such craft would be needed in China in the next 15 years.

The research and design stage would last for four years, with commercial production to begin in at least five years, Hu said, adding that the company would employ 1,500 people.

China Picture Moment : World’s Tallest man in China

“Bao Xishun, a herdsman listed by the Guinness World Records as the tallest living man at seven-feet, nine-inches tall, walks with his bride, Xia Shujuan, at a park in Chifeng, north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, on July 2, 2007. The couple was married in March and will hold a wedding ceremony in July.”