Shanghai begins culling poultry; one contact shows flu symptoms (2)

Of the latest two deaths, a 52-year-old woman surnamed Yu died at Huashan Hospital on Wednesday and was confirmed infected with the H7N9 strain on Thursday.

Yu developed a low fever on March 27 and sent to an intensive care unit of Huashan Hospital on April 2. She died on the following day.

The other case involved a 48-year-old man surnamed Chu, a poultry transporter from Rugao in neighboring Jiangsu Province.

He developed symptoms of cough on March 28. After having a fever on Monday, he went to a private clinic for treatment. The man then sought help in the Tongji Hospital in Shanghai in the early hours of Wednesday after his condition worsened.

Chu died three hours after being admitted to the hospital. He was confirmed infected with the H7N9 virus on Thursday. Eight people who had close contact with him have shown no abnormal symptoms.

So far, China has confirmed 14 H7N9 cases -- six in Shanghai, four in Jiangsu, three in Zhejiang and one in Anhui, in the first known human infections of the lesser-known strain. Of all, four died in Shanghai and one died in Zhejiang.

China's health authorities have promised transparency and cooperation to the World Health Organization in regards to human infections of the new strain of bird flu.

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday that no human-to-human transmission of H7N9 has been discovered and no epidemiological connection between these cases has been found.

Health authorities and hospitals in many Chinese provinces have been on high alert for the virus.

The health authorities in the southern Guangdong Province have set up an expert team headed by Zhong Nanshan, a renowned medical expert, to offer advices on epidemic control and prevention.

Zhong, director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases, is credited with helping to identify and then stem the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

In Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi Province, which neighbors Zhejiang, five hospitals have been selected and ordered to be ready to treat H7N9 patients, though no cases have been reported there.

South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has ordered an inventory on medical supplies and respirator deployment for potential H7N9 cases.

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