bird flu

A man has died from the H7N9 bird flu strain in eastern China, at the end of a year in which cases of the virus have accelerated.

Dutch officials banned the transport of poultry in the Netherlands after the discovery of a highly infectious strain of bird flu which could jump to humans.

Japan has finished slaughtering 112,000 chickens after confirming its first bird flu infections for three years, with authorities stepping up efforts to swiftly contain the latest outbreak, officials said Tuesday.

A total of 72 people died from the H7N9 bird flu strain in China in the first two months of this year, government figures showed, far more than in the whole of 2013.

Chinese scientists sounded the alarm Wednesday after a new bird flu virus, H10N8, killed an elderly woman in December and infected another individual last month.

Three members of the same Chinese family have contracted H7N9 bird flu in the province worst-affected by the current spike in cases, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

China has reportedly downgraded H7N9 bird flu in humans, dropping its description as "infectious" in new guidelines on how to deal with the disease, even as new cases spike with the onset of winter.

A 73-year-old Chinese woman has died of a type of bird flu new in humans, health officials say, but experts believe the risk of it spreading between people is low.

Researchers in Taiwan on Thursday called on watchdogs to keep up their guard after a flu virus that commonly circulates among chickens was found for the first time in a human being.

A Chinese woman infected with the deadly H7N9 bird flu virus died of multiple organ failure, a Beijing hospital said, bringing the total fatalities from the disease to 45.

Scientists proposed developing a more potent strain of the deadly H7N9 bird flu on Wednesday to examine how mutant forms might spread among humans, a topic that has stoked global alarm in the past.

Chinese scientists on Wednesday reported the first likely case of direct person-to-person transmission of the H7N9 bird flu virus that has killed over 40 people since March.

The H7N9 bird flu that hit China this year killed over a third of hospitalised patients, said researchers Monday who labelled the virus "less serious" but probably more widespread than previously thought.

No new human cases of the H7N9 virus have been recorded in China for a week, national health authorities said, for the first time since the outbreak began in March.

China's human H7N9 bird flu outbreak has cost the country's poultry industry more than 400 billion yuan ($65 billion) as consumers shun chicken.

The death toll from the H7N9 bird flu outbreak in China has risen to 31.

A World Health Organisation team was due Monday to wrap up a trip to Shanghai, centre of China's bird flu outbreak which has killed 20 people, as part of an investigation into how the virus is spreading.

Experts from the UN's health agency are examining whether the H7N9 bird flu virus is spreading among humans, after a cluster of cases among relatives.

Photos of 10 dead sparrows on a Chinese pavement which went viral on social media and drew a swift official response show how hard covering up a bird flu outbreak would be in the Internet age.

China's poultry industry lost 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) in the week after the H7N9 bird flu virus began infecting humans, state-run media said Monday as they sought to discourage panic.