CDC to send staff to China on H7N9 concerns
ROC Central News Agency
2013/04/05 15:50:00
Taipei, April 5 (CNA) Taiwan's Centers for Disease Control (CDC) will send staff to China to gain a better understanding of the situation regarding human infections of the deadly H7N9 avian flu virus there, CDC Director-General Chang Feng-yee said Friday.
Chang said that after the first cases of human infections were reported March 31, his office made initial contact with China on the matter in a written communication and has since spoken by phone to a relevant official there.
"I discussed the idea over the phone with a mainland Chinese official at an appropriate level this morning," Chang said.
In principle, the CDC will send personnel to China to learn more about the H7N9 situation there, he said, but declined to give any further details.
Taiwan's Department of Health, under which the CDC falls, said earlier in the day that Chinese health authorities had confirmed 14 cases of human infections of the deadly H7N9 virus, six of them fatal.
All of the eight patients receiving treatment are critically ill, with the exception of a 4-year-old, who is in stable condition, the department said, citing information from Chinese health authorities.
Six of the confirmed H7N9 cases were in Shanghai, four in nearby Jiangsu Province, one in Anhui Province and three in Zhejiang, according to China's Center for Disease Prevention and Control .
Meanwhile, China's official Xinhua news agency said Thursday authorities in Shanghai closed a live poultry trading zone in a farm produce market earlier that day and began culling all birds there after detecting H7N9 bird flu virus from samples of pigeon from the market.
(By Chen Ching-fang and Sofia Wu)
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