China culls birds as bird flu deaths mount

     Chinese authorities slaughtered over 20,000 birds on Friday at a poultry market in the financial hub Shanghai as the death toll from a new strain of bird flu mounted to six, spreading concern overseas and sparking a sell-off on Hong Kong’s share market.
State news agency Xinhua said the Huhuai market for live birds in Shanghai had been shut down and birds were being culled after authorities detected the H7N9 virus from samples of pigeons in the market.

 All the 14 reported infections from the H7N9 bird flu strain have been in eastern China and at least four of the dead are in Shanghai, a city of 23 million people and the showpiece of China’s vibrant economy.

The latest death was of a 64-year-old man in Zhejiang province, Xinhua said on Friday, adding that none of the 55 people who had close contact with him had shown symptoms of infection.
In Hong Kong, shares tumbled to a four-month low on Friday on worries that the new strain of bird flu infections could become a widespread outbreak and hurt the local economy.
“The bird flu issue is at the top of people’s minds now,” said Alfred Chan, chief dealer at Cheer Pearl Investment in Hong Kong.
Chinese airlines were among the biggest percentage losers on the day, including China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and Air China. Cathay Pacific also fell 
  

     In Japan, airports have put up posters at entry points warning all passengers from China to seek medical attention if they have flu-like symptoms.
In the United States, the White House said it was monitoring the situation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had started work on a vaccine if it was needed. It would take five to six months to begin commercial production.
So far, this lack of human-to-human transmission also appears to be a feature of the H7N9 strain.
“The gene sequences confirm that this is an avian virus, and that it is a low pathogenic form (meaning it is likely to cause mild disease in birds),” said Wendy Barclay, a flu virologist at Britain’s Imperial College London.
“But what the sequences also reveal is that there are some mammalian adapting mutations in some of the genes.”