Search Here

There have been four new cases in China where people were infected with the lesser-known H7N9 bird flu that has already killed two, bringing the total of known cases to seven.

The health authority in Jiangsu province said four people living in different cities are in critical condition after they developed fever, coughing and other symptoms around March 20. They tested positive for H7N9 on Tuesday afternoon, according to Asia Online.

Already two men from Shanghai, aged 27 and 87, were reported to have died from the H7N9 infection on Sunday, with a woman from Anhui province in critical condition. Hundreds of people who have had close contact with the patients have not, as yet, developed fever or respiratory symptoms.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday there was no evidence that the H7N9 strain could be transmitted between people, but that it was investigating the outbreak.

According to Xinhua news, the Shanghai Animal Disease Prevention and Control Center tested on Monday 34 samples of pig carcasses pulled from the Huangpu River running through the city and providing it drinking water. It found no bird flu viruses. Thousands of dead pigs were extracted from the Huangpu River last month, sparking huge concern regarding the safety of the tap water.

H7N9 bird flu is considered a low pathogenic strain that cannot easily be contracted by humans. The overwhelming majority of human deaths from bird flu have been caused by the more virulent H5N1, which decimated poultry stocks across Asia in 2003.

Meanwhile, The World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission in the three reported cases.

China is considered one of the nation's most at risk from bird flu because it has the world's biggest poultry population and many chickens in rural areas are kept close to humans.