China Central Television, the government broadcaster, said cases have been confirmed in Hunan and Hubei provinces and that suspected cases were being investigated in Shanghai and in the provinces of Anhui and Guangdong.

The announcement comes three days after China confirmed its first case of bird flu in duck carcasses on a farm in the southern region of Guangxi.

Guangdong, near Hong Kong, is the province where the earliest cases of what would become severe acute respiratory syndrome were reported in November 2002.