In this Saturday, April 6, 2013 photo, a worker takes excrement samples from a chicken at a closed poultry market in Nanjing in east China's Jiangsu province. Shanghai has reported two more cases of human infection of a new strain of bird flu, raising the number of cases in eastern China to 18. Six of the people who contracted the virus have died. Health officials believe people are contracting the H7N9 virus through direct contact with infected fowl and say there's no evidence the virus is spreading easily between people. (AP Photo) CHINA OUT (AP)
BEIJING – Two people in the Chinese province of Anhui have died of bird flu infection, the first fatalities among this winter's avian flu cases in China, as neighbors South Korea and Japan tried to curb their own outbreaks of the virus.
Anhui has reported five cases of H7N9 avian flu since Dec. 8, including two deaths, the province's health authority said in a statement dated Dec. 21, posted on its website.
It did not say whether the other three people had recovered or not.
The Anhui cases bring the total number of people infected with the H7N9 virus in mainland China this month to at least seven.
Hong Kong this week reported its first human bird flu infection for this season.
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