A Chinese vendor shows the
empty poultry cage at the Huhuai wholesale agricultural market in
Shanghai, a day after a total of 20,536 chickens, ducks, geese and
pigeons had been slaughtered. Shanghai ordered all live poultry markets
in the city closed after culling more than 20,000 birds to curb the
spread of the H7N9 flu virus.
(STR / AFP/Getty Images)
|
10:12 p.m. CDT, April 5, 2013
SHANGHAI (Reuters) -
Chinese authorities have found traces of a new bird flu virus that has
killed six people in more areas in Shanghai, state media reported, after
authorities slaughtered over 20,000 birds at a large poultry market in
the city.
State-run Xinhua news agency said samples of the H7N9
virus were found at two markets selling agricultural products in the
Minhang district of Shanghai, a city of 23 million people that is
China's financial hub.
The markets were near the Huhuai
live poultry market where infected pigeons were discovered earlier in
the week and where the culling was carried out.
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.
The strain does not appear to be transmitted from human to
human, but authorities in mainland China and Hong Kong said they were
taking extra precautions.
Shanghai has banned all live poultry
from other parts of the country from entering the city, and has now
closed three markets to stem the spread of the virus, Xinhua said.
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.
(Reporting by Adam Jourdan in SHANGHAI and Farah Master in HONG KONG; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
end quote from:
Economic Times
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