A day after Shanghai closed a live poultry trading zone and ordered culling of thousands of birds, China’s Hangzhou city today followed suit after the deadly H7N9 bird flu virus was detected from quails sold in its farm produce market.
Six persons have so far died in the country due to the avian influenza and 16 cases have been confirmed in the first known human infection of the lesser-known strain.
The second confirmed H7N9 case in east China’s Zhejiang Province has been found to have eaten quails bought from the Binsheng Agricultural and Sideline Products Market in Shangcheng District, Hangzhou city.
The disease control and prevention centre of Hangzhou detected H7N9 bird flu virus from the quails in the market yesterday.
The virus sample has been sent to the national disease control and prevention centre for recheck. Culling of live poultry in the Hangzhou market began early today, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Shanghai had yesterday announced closing down its live poultry markets beginning today and banned all live poultry from other parts of the country from entering the city.
The 16 cases of the deadly flu have been reported from Shanghai (6), Jiangsu (6), Zhejiang (3) and Anhui (1). The six deaths due to H7N9 infections have been reported from Shanghai and Zhejiang.