Silent spreader (Image: Bobby Yip/Reuters/Corbis)

Deadly bird flu is on the march. A 35-year old woman has become the first person in Hong Kong to contract the H7N9 virus, a sign that it is spreading across China.

The woman, a domestic worker, is in a critical condition in hospital. The family she works for was under quarantine with mild flu symptoms. It is thought that she caught the virus from a chicken that she killed, cooked and ate in Shenzhen, which lies in the neighbouring Guangdong province.

H7N9 spreads “silently” in poultry, which show no symptoms but can transmit the virus to humans. People in very close contact can sometimes pass it to one another.


The virus first broke out in people earlier this year, much further north in Shanghai. Back then, it infected 134 and killed 45. Infections stopped during the summer but autumn has seen four so far, including the most recent, the woman in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has now stopped importing Shenzhen chickens and is screening people at its border. Shanghai also announced this week that for the next five years it will shut all live markets from February to April, when millions travel to celebrate new year.

This article will appear in print under the headline “Hong Kong gets flu”