Number of Bird Flu Cases in China's Guangdong Province Reaches 30

MOSCOW, February 01 (Sputnik) – Two more cases of bird flu have been reported to authorities in China's Guangdong province, placing have taken the number of infected people in the region at 30, Xinhua reports.

According to local health authorities, “A 48-year-old man from Jieyang City died on Thursday and was later confirmed infected of thewith bird flu," while "another 9-year-old girl from Shanwei City was confirmed infected on Friday.”

The girl is said to be in a stable condition after medical treatment, Xinhua reported the authorities as saying in a statement published on Saturday. According to the agency, as a result of the spread of the virus, thousands of chickens have been culled in Guangdong and Hong Kong, and restrictions have been put on the trade in live poultry, in an effort to halt transmission.

The outbreak in Guangdong, which is China's most populous province and borders with Hong Kong, comes at the height of the bird flu season, usually in winter and spring. On January 22, the Taiwan Center for Disease Control reported that since October 1, 2014, a total of 67 infections with the H7N9 strain of bird flu cases had been confirmed in China. The numbers included 15 in Guangdong, 21 in Fujian Province, ten in Zhejiang Province, eight in Jiangsu Province, seven in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and two in Shanghai City. 

The first case of H7N9 bird flu in humans was reported in China in March 2013, after which an outbreak occurred in Spring 2013 which resulted in 132 human infections and claimed the lives of 44 people, the WHO reports. The organization estimates the overall fatality rate from the virus to be 22 percent, based on confirmed cases. To date there has been no sustained evidence of human- to to-human transmission of the disease.

On January 26 the Public Health Agency of Canada stated that a husband and  wife from British Columbia had also been diagnosed with the disease, having recently returned to Canada from China. The health authority however advised that these were "isolated cases,” and the risk to Canadians of H7N9 is “very low.” Canada's CBSNews reporteds that the couple, the first people in North America known to be diagnosed with the virus, have both recovered.