Hong Kong girl tests negative for H7N9 bird flu virus
Shanghai health authorities cull 20,000 birds amid H7N9 scare
Tests in Hong Kong on the first suspected case of the H7N9 bird flu virus proved negative on Friday night.
The Hospital Authority said that a seven-year-old girl who travelled to Shanghai at the end of last month had developed a fever and flu symptoms.
She was in quarantine in Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s paediatric department. But officials revealed the tests for the H7N9 strain were negative shortly 8before midnight.
The news emerged as it was announced the virus had claimed its sixth victim, a 64-year-old farmer from Huzhou, Zhejiang province. He was confirmed to have the virus on Thursday and died that night.
Health officials in Jiangsu said on Friday that two new cases had been confirmed in the provincial capital Nanjing.
One was a 61-year-old woman, said to be in a critical condition, and the other a 79-year-old man in a serious condition. The cases take the total number of people confirmed to have been infected in the Yangtze River Delta region to 16.
In Shanghai, markets trading in live poultry will be closed 8temporarily and sales of live birds suspended elsewhere, said 8municipal government spokesman Xu Wei .