New strain of bird flu emerges, claims two victims in China

A new strain of bird flu has emerged and two men from Shanghai have been its first victims. Chinese official sources say that apart from the two men, one more person is still being treated for the disease. Both deaths took place in Shanghai, earlier this month, but the information was passed on to the media later in the Month by the health authorities.

Doctors say that it is unclear, how the men got infected, as there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission. The part that has doctors worried, is the fact that the flu is showing signs of spreading to a wide area. The third patient who tested positive for the H7N9 strain of bird flu, lives in an area, far away from the Shanghai region. The National Health and Family Planning Commission said that the woman lives in Anhui region, China.

The two men who died were aged 87 and 27 respectively. They fell ill in February and March this year. The silver lining in the whole situation was that the virus was not found to be contagious. It was found that none of the 88 people, in close contact with the patients were infected by the virus.

The H7N9 bird flu strain is considered a low pathogenic strain that is not easily transmitted to humans. The most common strain is the H5N1 strain that has the most number of deaths attributed to it. The H7N9 strain does not have a vaccine, and the most common symptoms that all three patients showed were fever and cough that later developed into pneumonia. The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has informed the World Health Organisation about their findings.

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