BEIJING, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The father of a Chinese man who died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu this month was recovering on Saturday after he was infected with the same virus, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The 52-year-old man surnamed Lu from Nanjing, capital of the eastern coastal province Jiangsu, was feverish with the H5N1 strain on Monday but "showed signs of improvement", Xinhua said, quoting unidentified bird flu prevention experts.

There was nothing "unusual" with people who had had close contact with Lu, Xinhua said without giving further details.

This latest case raises troublesome questions about how the man was infected.

Humans can contract H5N1 from close contact with infected birds, but scientists fear the disease could mutate into a version that spreads from person-to-person, risking wider outbreaks or even a global pandemic.

Lu's 24-year-old son died last Sunday from the same disease, making the question of how these two infections occurred especially important.

Xinhua had earlier reported that the son had had no contact with dead poultry and there had been no reported poultry outbreak in Jiangsu province.

It was unknown whether contact with infected poultry had been confirmed in either of the infections.

The 24-year-old man's death was the first case in China since June and brought the death toll from the disease to 17.

With the world's biggest poultry population and millions of backyard birds roaming free, China is at the centre of the fight against bird flu.

The Ministry of Health said the World Health Organisation had been notified of the latest case.

WHO representatives in Beijing could not be contacted for comment. (Reporting by Li Jiansheng and Benjamin Kang Lim; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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