No end to China H7N9 bird flu as it spreads to new province
15 April 2013 6:36 AM IST
China's H7N9 bird flu virus spread to a new province on Sunday, with state media reporting two human cases in central Henan just west of the the area where the disease has been centred.
Until Saturday, when one case was reported in the capital of Beijing, all other instances had occurred in the eastern city of Shanghai and nearby Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui provinces hundreds of miles (kilometres) away.
Four new cases were reported in Zhejiang on Sunday by a provincial newspaper on its Weibo account, a service similar to Twitter.
In total 55 people have been infected and 11 have died of the disease since Chinese authorities announced two weeks ago they had found H7N9 in humans for the first time.
Experts fear the prospect of such viruses mutating into a form easily transmissible between humans.
But the World Health Organization (WHO) said last week there was as yet no evidence of human-to-human transmission.
Until Saturday, when one case was reported in the capital of Beijing, all other instances had occurred in the eastern city of Shanghai and nearby Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui provinces hundreds of miles (kilometres) away.
Four new cases were reported in Zhejiang on Sunday by a provincial newspaper on its Weibo account, a service similar to Twitter.
In total 55 people have been infected and 11 have died of the disease since Chinese authorities announced two weeks ago they had found H7N9 in humans for the first time.
Experts fear the prospect of such viruses mutating into a form easily transmissible between humans.
But the World Health Organization (WHO) said last week there was as yet no evidence of human-to-human transmission.
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