# 1039
The four children that authorities were testing for possible avian flu have all tested negative according to today's report.
Four Indian children test negative for bird flu
Fri 3 Aug 2007, 5:39 GMT
NEW DELHI, Aug 3 (Reuters) - India has completed health checks on thousands of people after an outbreak of bird flu in the remote northeast, and cleared four boys who had been suffering from fever after handling dead or sick poultry.
Throat swab and tissue samples of the four boys had been sent for testing but no sign of bird flu was found.
"They are negative," Vineet Chawdhry, a joint secretary in India's health ministry, told Reuters on Friday.
Thousands of people in Manipur state in India's northeast were also checked by health officials after the outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in chickens on a small poultry farm.
Globally, the H5N1 virus has killed at least 192 people out of 319 who have been affected since late 2003, with health experts fearing it could one day mutate into a form that could pass easily between humans, triggering a pandemic.
In Manipur, the boys -- who media reports say are all under 14 -- lived within a 5-km (3 mile) radius of the affected farm. Another 21 people living or working on the farm and nine veterinary workers were also tested and cleared earlier.
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