Municipal officials have warned residents to avoid contact with live poultry
Guangzhou officials have advised residents to avoid contact with live poultry after one-third of poultry markets in China’s third-largest city were found to be contaminated with H7N9 bird flu. The warning was given on Thursday after the Guangzhou Centre for Disease Control and Prevention found in its latest weekly sample assessment that more than 30 per cent of local live poultry markets were contaminated with the H7N9 avian flu virus. Live poultry markets are a major source of human infection, as previous cases indicate. The result fans fears of a wider spread as the city, which has a population of 17 million people, is a major transportation hub for migrant workers, many of whom are now returning to Guangdong province from their hometowns after the Lunar New Year holiday. Guangzhou announced last month that it would halt live poultry trading in all markets three days a month in the first quarter of the year. The city has had 35 people diagnosed with the virus in the past three years, more than half of whom died, Zhang Zhoubin, the deputy director of the municipal disease control centre, told local media.
