The transparency of health authorities in China has come under criticism yet again with the news of a new strain of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus which virologists say could be resistant to vaccines.
The new strain has now spread from southern China to South East Asia, and re-ignited very real fears of an imminent pandemic.
The strain was first isolated in Fujian province in March 2005, and has since appeared in several provinces in China since October 2005, and Hong Kong, Laos Thailand and Malaysia.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has criticized China's Agriculture Ministry for not sharing samples of the newly discovered strain of bird flu, complicating the health watchdog's efforts to track the virus' spread.
The ministry's reluctance has been an ongoing source of aggravation for the WHO and International health experts have repeatedly complained about Chinese reluctance in co-operating on investigating emerging diseases like bird flu and the SARS pneumonia.
According to three researchers, University of Hong Kong virologists Guan Yi and Malik Peiris, and U.S.-based Robert Webster, the variant has already initiated a third wave of transmission throughout Southeast Asia and may spread further in Eurasia and the controls now in place were probably "ineffective" in dealing with H5N1's evolutions.
The scientists had collected bird faecal samples from poultry markets in Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan and Hunans provinces from July 2005 to June 2006; about 1,300 of these samples tested positive for H5N1.
The provinces are densely populated and people live in close proximity to ducks, pigs and other farm animals, making the area a common breeding ground for flu viruses.
However, in other samples, collected from October 2005, they found that the Fujian strain had become predominant.