Chinese agriculture officials have issued an alert against bird flu after a 19-year-old woman died of the disease in Beijing.

Workers were disinfecting a market in Langfang, Hebei Province neighboring Beijing, on Wednesday morning. The woman bought nine ducks at the market on December 19 and died of bird flu on Monday in a Beijing hospital.

The market's five shops selling live poultry have been closed.

Meanwhile, Beijing Municipal Bureau of Agriculture has issued an order to intensify monitoring of live poultry trade, and experts have begun an inspection campaign at the city's slaughterhouses and poultry farms.

No domestic fowl were kept within 10 km of the Sanjianfangdong Village of Chaoyang District in Beijing, where the dead woman lived, said municipal officials.

The city government had received no reports of abnormal situations regarding poultry.

(Xinhua News Agency January 7, 2009)