China reports 1st death from H5N6 bird flu virus

SHANGHAI/TAIPEI - A 49-year-old man who died of acute pneumonia in Nanchong city in China's Sichuan Province was infected with the H5N6 strain of bird flu virus, health officials said.

It was the first death of a person confirmed to have been infected with the strain, according to Taiwanese health authorities, who have been in contact with the Chinese authorities.

It could be the first confirmed case of human infection with the H5N6 strain, according to Toshihiro Ito, a professor at Tottori University in Japan who is versed in avian influenza.

The H5N6 strain, a subtype of the H5 variety that is highly toxic to birds, is different from the H7N9 strain which has caused human infections in China.

The man in Sichuan had been exposed to dead birds, according to the officials.

Health authorities in China said people who had close contact with the man have shown no abnormalities and that the risk of infection spreading to other people is low. The Taiwanese authorities have urged caution among those traveling to Sichuan.

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Hong Kong confirms first death from H7N9 bird flu

HONG KONG - An 80-year-old man infected with the H7N9 bird flu virus has died in Hong Kong, the government said on Thursday, in the first such death in the city after the virus surfaced in early December.

The man, the second person in Hong Kong to be diagnosed with the virus strain, lived in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen and had eaten poultry there, media reported.

The H7N9 strain was first reported in humans in February in mainland China, and has infected at least 139 people in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, killing more than 40.

Experts say there is no evidence of any easy or sustained human-to-human transmission of H7N9, and so far all people who came into contact with the man had tested negative for the strain, authorities said.

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Hong Kong confirms first human case of bird flu

HONG KONG- Hong Kong confirmed its first case of deadly H7N9 bird flu on Monday in a further sign that the virus is continuing to spread beyond mainland China's borders.

The case coincides with the 10th anniversary of the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which killed nearly 300 people in Hong Kong and had a significant impact on the city's travel and retail industry.

A 36-year-old Indonesian domestic helper with a history of contact with poultry and travel to Shenzhen in mainland China just north of Hong Kong has been confirmed infected by H7N9 and has been hospitalized in critical condition, Secretary for Food and Health Ko Wing-man told reporters late on Monday.

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Chinese premier urges vigilance against bird flu

BEIJING - China's premier on Sunday urged authorities to be vigilant against a new strain of bird flu that has killed 23 people, while saying that efforts to tackle the virus have so far been effective.

Speaking during a visit to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Premier Li Keqiang warned people to prepare for any new developments amid fears H7N9 could mutate into a form easily transmissible between humans.

"Countermeasures have been effective so far, but the situation is still developing as new cases turn up," Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.

"We cannot afford to take it easy or relax, as we are facing a new virus," he said. "We should be prepared for any possible development."

He added that more effort was needed to diagnose and treat people with the virus as early as possible.
There have been well over 100 cases of the virus reported in China, with three more reported on Sunday, according to Xinhua, quoting local authorities.

The government announced on March 31 that the virus had been found in humans for the first time.
Most cases have been confined to eastern China and the only case to have been reported outside mainland China has been in Taiwan. The Taiwanese man was infected in China.
Experts have warned of the possibility of more cases over a wider area.

Chinese researchers, reporting in The Lancet on Thursday, said they had confirmed poultry as a source of the virus among humans.

Experts fear the prospect of the virus mutating into a form easily transmissible between humans, with the potential to trigger a pandemic.

The World Health Organization has said there has been no evidence of human-to-human transmission so far but warned that H7N9 was "one of the most lethal" influenza viruses ever seen.
Chinese health officials have acknowledged so-called "family clusters", where members of a single family have become infected, but have not established any confirmed instances of human-to-human transmission.

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China closes poultry markets amid bird flu

16 fall ill from bird flu in China

SHANGHAI - Chinese officials have found traces of the new bird flu virus in more areas in Shanghai and in the nearby city of Hangzhou, news reports said on Saturday, as authorities slaughtered birds to stop the spread of the virus that has killed six people.

State-run Xinhua news agency said authorities planned to cull birds at the two live poultry markets in Shanghai and another in Hangzhou after samples of the H7N9 virus were detected in birds at all three sites.

Over 20,000 birds have been culled in the Huhuai market, where traces of the virus were found earlier this week.

Officials in Shanghai, China's financial hub, ordered all live poultry markets in the city closed on Saturday, leaving the food stalls empty and signs reading "The market is closed until further notice".

The new strain of bird flu has infected 16 people in China, all in the east of the country. Six people have died, and the outbreak has spread concern overseas and sparked a sell-off in airline shares in Europe and Hong Kong.

There were no signs of panic in Shanghai, where four of the six deaths have taken place, and people said they were not yet worried. But the culling, which has been widely publicised, did underline for some how close to home the issue had become.

"Now it's just downstairs," said Liu Leting, a user of Weibo, China's version of Twitter which has over 500 million users.

"Suddenly I discover that I'm living in an epidemic zone!"

In one middle price-range restaurant in a the city, a waitress said that the restaurant planned to stop serving chicken dishes because of the outbreak.

"After we sell out the chicken in stock, we will not buy new chicken and will stop serving chicken dishes for the time being," said the waitress, who declined to be named.

While the strain does not appear to be transmitted from human to human, authorities in mainland China and Hong Kong said they were taking extra precautions.

"I support shutting down poultry markets. If the poultry markets stayed open, the virus would continue to spread," Shanghai resident Zhao Juying told Reuters.

Hong Kong's government said it is intensifying surveillance of travelers and poultry coming into the city.

China and Hong Kong were badly hit by the 2002-2003 epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that started in China and killed about one-tenth of the 8,000 it infected worldwide.

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No sign of human transmission in new bird flu cases

BEIJING - The World Health Organization says no evidence has emerged to show that a type of bird flu which has killed two Chinese men can be transmitted between people.

Two men in Shanghai, aged 87 and 27, fell sick in late February. A woman in Anhui province also contracted the virus in early March and is in critical condition.

"At this point, these three are isolated cases with no evidence of human-to-human transmission", the WHO representative in China, Dr. Michael O'Leary, told reporters on Monday.

China's National Health and Family Planning Commission confirmed on Sunday that the three cases were the H7N9 virus, which had not previously been known to infect humans.

"A new virus tends to be more virulent in the beginning. Either it is going to become a truly human virus, in which case we have to start dealing with it regularly, or it is going to be primarily an animal virus with just a rare human case," O'Leary said.

Some Chinese had complained that authorities took too long before announcing the deaths on Sunday. O'Leary said the government acted properly as the deaths needed to be investigated.

"China actually for a long time has been reporting promptly and openly. I think SARS was a turning point globally for that sort of thing. Not just in China," he said.

He was referring to the 2003 epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which caused a scandal when official numbers of cases were later dramatically revised upwards.

SARS emerged in China and killed about a tenth of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.

People buying poultry at a Shanghai market on Monday said they were worried the incidents had been made public only weeks after the deaths and said they hoped the government would be quick to report any new cases.

"In the future, no matter what it is, the government should make it public quickly and let the people know early. That way they can prevent it themselves", said shopper Zhang Zhili, 60.

Many users of Chinese microblogs, known as "weibo", said they suspected the latest outbreak of bird flu was related to more than 16,000 pig carcasses recently found dumped in rivers around Shanghai.

O'Leary said that while the dead pigs were part of the overall investigation, there was no evidence of any connection.

It is not known how the three victims were infected. The virus does not seem highly contagious because no health abnormalities were detected among 88 of the victims' close contacts, the health commission said.

source: abs-cbnnews.com