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 Health officials in nearby South Korea and Japan have been
scrambling to contain outbreaks of different strains of bird flu,
with the poultry industry there bracing for heavy financial losses.
A man diagnosed with the H7N9 strain of bird flu is being treated in
Shanghai, after traveling from the neighboring province of Jiangsu,
the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning said
on its website on Wednesday.
Shanghai is China's most populated city with more than 24 million
residents.
The local government in Jiangsu is looking into the origin of the
infection, the provincial health authority said on Thursday.
In Xiamen, a city in China's eastern Fujian province, local
authorities ordered a halt to poultry sales from Thursday in the
Siming district, after a 44-year-old man was diagnosed with H7N9 flu
on Sunday, state news agency Xinhua reported late on Wednesday.
The patient is being treated in hospital and is in stable condition,
Xinhua said, citing Xiamen's diseases prevention and control center.
The city has a population of about 3.5 million.
The latest incidents come after Hong Kong confirmed an elderly man
was diagnosed with the disease earlier this week.
CHICKEN DEMAND AT RISK?
The cases come as South Korea and Japan have ordered the killing of
tens of millions of birds in the past month, fueling fears of a
regional spread.
Bird flu is most likely to strike in winter and spring and farmers
have in recent years increased cleaning regimes, animal detention
techniques and built roofs to cover hen pens, among other steps, to
prevent the disease.
In the past two months, more than 110,000 birds have been killed
following bird flu outbreaks, according to the Ministry of
Agriculture. They did not lead to human infection.
Each year, China slaughters 11 billion birds for consumption.
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Authorities have not culled any birds as a result of this week's
episodes, which appear to be isolated.
Still, farmers worry the virus could spread, hurting demand for
chicken as the Chinese prepare for peak demand during Lunar New Year
celebrations at the end of January.
Amid recent outbreaks elsewhere, the Chinese are feeding their
flocks more vitamins and vaccines and ramping up hen house
sterilization to protect their birds.
On Wednesday, authorities said they would ban imports of poultry
from countries where there are outbreaks of highly pathogenic bird
flu. It already prohibits imports from more than 60 nations,
including Japan and South Korea.
The last major bird flu outbreak in mainland China in 2013 killed 36
people and caused about $6.5 billion in losses to the agriculture
sector.
Delegations from Japan, South Korea and China gathered in Beijing
last week for a symposium on preventing and controlling bird flu and
other diseases in East Asia, according to China's agriculture
ministry website.
(Reporting by Josephine Mason, Hallie Gu and Beijing newsroom;
Editing by Joseph Radford and Manolo Serapio Jr.)
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