CRI听力:China Steps up Monitoring after More H7N9 Bird Flu Cases Confirmed

Four people in east China's Jiangsu Province have been confirmed as being infected with the lesser-known H7N9 bird flu, bringing the total number of infections in the country to seven.

The three women and one man, one of whom is a poultry culler, are in critical conditions and under emergency treatment.

So far, a total of 167 people who have come into contact with the four show no symptoms of fever or respiratory illnesses.

Meanwhile, medical officials are moving to calm public concerns about the potential threat of the new strain of Avian Flu.

Doctor Zhu Xuemei from Shanghai Ruijin Hospital says the virus shows no signs of being highly contagious among humans.

"There is no evidence showing that domestic fowl can pass the virus onto humans. There should be no panic. Such flu is not uncommon in waterfowl."

Shanghai, where two people died from the first known human infections of the bird flu strain, has announced that statistics on pneumonia cases caused by unknown reasons will be reported daily.

The city government will also set up an expert team to evaluate the severity and risk of the H7N9 bird flu, to step up research on the virus.

Jiangsu Province has also designated 16 leading hospitals to accept new cases in a bid to offer better treatment and reduce the mortality rate.

Beijing has ordered hospitals to include the testing of H7N9 bird flu in routine monitoring and to train hospital staff on how to treat pneumonia caused by unknown factors.

Shandong has ordered morning tests of fever, cough and other respiratory symptoms at schools, nurseries and poultry farms.

However, Professor Jiang Qingwu from Fudan University says confirming the strain of virus is a slow process.

"We need to check every gene of each nucleotide of the virus. This is a rigorous procedure. And it takes a great amount of time from checking to confirmation."

On Sunday, three H7N9 bird flu cases were reported, two in Shanghai and one in Anhui.

The one from Anhui is still in critical condition and under treatment in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province.

It is unclear how the three got infected, and no mutual infections were discovered among them.

There are no vaccines against the H7N9 bird flu virus either at home or abroad.

For CRI, I'm Chen Xi.