Central China's Hubei Province has stepped up measures to prevent the potential spread of H5N1 avian influenza after a young man died from the disease in the provincial capital of Wuhan on Wednesday.

A vendor cooks chicken to sell at a market in Xiangfan, central China's Hubei province April 21, 2006. [Reuters]

Poultry immunization and preventing the spread of the disease among people are of prime importance for the province's epidemic prevention department, according to the provincial headquarters on bird flu prevention.

The poultry immunization in Hubei this spring is nearing an end, with more than 96 percent of the provincial poultry in captivity having received the bird flu vaccine, according to the headquarters.

The province's health department has set up more than 100 monitoring stations at the fever clinics, where all the fever patients have been required to receive treatment.

All the hospitals have been ordered to take measures, such as isolating suspicious human cases, and to give medical workers training on the disease.

The man surnamed Lai, a 21-year-old native of the city of Enshiin Hubei, worked as a security guard at a company in Wuhan. He started showing symptoms of fever and pneumonia on April 1 and was confirmed to have been infected with the H5N1 strain on Tuesday.

Lai died on Wednesday and the provincial health department confirmed his death on Thursday. This is the first human infection of the virus in Wuhan, which has a population of nearly 8.6 million people, as well as in Hubei.

The reasons why Lai became infected with the fatal disease are still unknown and the local health authorities have placed under observation all the people who have been in close contact with thepatient.

The authority sources said that so far none of them have shown any abnormal symptoms.

China has reported 17 human cases of bird flu, which have resulted in 12 deaths.