14 DAY TRIAL // Officials with the UN World Health Organization (WHO) have just confirmed 4 more deaths following infections with the H7N9 strain of the avian influenza virus. Thus far, the viral agent appears to be infecting people only in China, but it may easily spread to the entire world.
Of the four cases, two were recorded in the Zhejian province of China, where an elderly man and his son-in-law got sick. The senior exhibited the telltale signs first, while his son-in-law most likely caught the virus after attending to his relative, the state-run Xinhua news agency reports.
The other two deaths from H7N9 were reported in Hong Kong, where two people died after catching the virus during a recent trip to the nearby Chinese city of Shenzhen. Official reports indicate that one of the victims, a woman, had killed and cooked a chicken while in China.
At this point, the WHO has no clear evidences to support the notion of human-to-human transmission for this extremely deadly viral strain. That is not to say that H7N9 cannot jump from person to person. Rather, the Organization has yet to establish this with a high degree of certainty, Science Blog reports.