Deadly new bird flu strain resurfaces in China

A six-year-old boy has been found positive for the deadly new bird flu strain in Beijing as the H7N9 virus that has killed 37 people so far resurfaced in China after a gap of two weeks.
The boy, who lives in the Haidian district, was confirmed to have been infected with the H7N9 strain yesterday, the Beijing municipal health bureau said in a statement today.
The child developed symptoms including fever and headache on May 21 and he was sent to a hospital for medical treatment on the same day.
His body temperature returned to normal on May 23 and he returned to kindergarten the next day, it said.

The boy was sent to the Beijing Ditan Hospital for further medical observation after being confirmed of the H7N9 infection, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The boy is in good condition and his body temperature has been normal for five straight days, the statement said.

The H7N9 epidemic has waned this month with only a few cases being confirmed.
No cases were reported during the past two weeks.
H7N9 avian influenza was first reported in March. With the latest case, the Chinese mainland has reported 131 confirmed H7N9 cases and of which 37 people died.
Meanwhile, a new report by Chinese scientists has showed that all the 111 H7N9 avian influenza patients investigated for the research had a fever while 90.1 per cent had developed coughs.

Males and the elderly are more likely to be infected.
The report by scientists from 30 hospitals in seven Chinese provinces and municipalities revealed for the first time the clinical findings of 111patients who were confirmed as infected with H7N9.
According to the report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the world's most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals, 76.6 per cent of the studied patients were admitted to an intensive care unit while 27 per cent died.
The median age of the patients was 61 years, and 42.3 per cent were 65 years of age or older, indicating that the elderly are more likely to be infected with the disease.

"This might be related with the habits of Chinese families where the elderly are more often shopping at markets," said Li Lanjuan, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, who was responsible for the research.
Markets trading in live poultry have been proved to be main sources of H7N9 infection from birds to people. Some 68.5 per cent of the patients investigated for the report were male.
"But we have not conducted further research on whether it is related with genes," Li said.
An official statement said no evidence of human-to-human transmission has been detected so far.