According to the Xinhua News Agency, a new case of H7N9 bird flu has been confirmed in south China’s Guangdong Province. Guangdong’s health department said in a statement that 51-year-old woman tested positive for H7N9 at China’s equivalent of the CDC, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Xinhua News Agency also reports that the 51-year-old woman worked with poultry in an agricultural products trade market. The woman was admitted to Huizhou City Central People’s Hospital, but was eventually sent to the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University. She is currently in critical condition.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that an outbreak of human infections with H7N9 was first reported in Asia by the World Health Organization at the beginning of April. The virus was detected in poultry in China and most of the people infected with H7N9 reported contact with poultry.
Although the “transmissibility was limited and non-sustainable” in the study case, researchers recently identified the first evidence that H7N9 had spread from human to human. The study was conducted by researchers reporting in the British Medical Journal.
