HONG KONG, China (AP) -- China called bird flu a "serious epidemic" and reported three new outbreaks of the deadly virus in different parts of the country, while Canada announced multiple new cases but stressed they are not the virulent strain that has swept across Asia.China's grim description Tuesday came as it reported its 18th, 19th and 20th outbreaks since late last month. The latest cases resulted in the killing of nearly 175,000 birds. The massive nation -- where billions of poultry are being vaccinated -- has reported one human fatality and one suspected death."The government is making all efforts to combat bird flu, which is a serious epidemic in China," Liu Jianchao, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, told reporters at a routine briefing.Liu added that China was still "facing serious challenges" and that the country "will step up our efforts in order to resolve this bird flu issue."The official Xinhua News Agency said that an outbreak in Urumqi, the capital of the far western region of Xinjiang, killed 38 birds on Nov. 16, prompting the culling of 8,388 birds.Another in western Ningxia province's Yinchuan city on Nov. 17 killed 230 poultry, with 66,800 culled. On the same day in the southern province of Yunnan, 2,500 birds died in the city of Chuxiong, and authorities later put 99,400 birds to death, Xinhua said."The situation is currently under control in the three affected areas," Xinhua said, citing the Agriculture Ministry.Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan followed the United States in temporarily halting poultry imports from mainland British Columbia after Canadian officials said they found a duck infected with bird flu.On Tuesday, Dr. Cronelius Kiley of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said that multiple new cases had been discovered in a farm operated by the owner of a farm where the duck had been diagnosed as infected with the H5 virus.He said the latest cases were found on one of four other quarantined farms, and that preparations are under way to cull birds on that farm.Canada has insisted that the strain was less virulent than the virus that has hit poultry in Asia and killed at least 67 people in the region since 2003.Russian veterinary authorities said Tuesday that bird flu has been detected in a southern region and that measures were being taken to prevent it from spreading.The country's veterinary service identified the H5 type of bird flu in 200 swans that were found dead in the Volga River delta in the Astrakhan region, the Agriculture Ministry said. It had not yet been determined if it was the H5N1 strainJapan reported that signs of a bird flu infection were found at a poultry farm in northern Japan. It was the latest in a series of outbreaks that has led to the killing of about 1.6 million chickens over the past few months in the region.The birds in the town of Ogawa -- 100 kilometers (62 miles) northeast of Tokyo -- were being tested, and the results were determine whether 290,000 chickens would be culled, said Ibaraki Prefectural (state) official Osamu Kamogawa.Indonesia's health minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, said the number of human bird flu cases is likely to be far higher than reported because of poor surveillance outside the capital, Jakarta. The government planned a nationwide campaign to measure the extent of the virus in the sprawling country of more than 13,000 islands, Supari said.All but two of Indonesia's 11 confirmed cases of bird flu -- seven of which have been fatal -- have occurred in the greater Jakarta area.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.