SHANGHAI: Four more people in China have been infected with a new strain of bird flu, a local government said yesterday, bringing the country’s total to seven.
The announcement follows Sunday’s disclosure of three infections — two of them fatal —elsewhere in China, the first time the H7N9 strain of avian influenza is known to have been transmitted to humans.
Yesterday, the health bureau in the eastern province of Jiangsu said three women and one man had contracted H7N9 avian influenza.
All were undergoing medical treatment and there was no evidence yet to link the four, who lived in different cities, it said in a statement.
One of the patients from Nanjing city worked slaughtering live poultry, but the others had no such contact.
The central government announced Sunday that two men, aged 87 and 27, died in Shanghai in early March after being infected with H7N9. — AFP