Photo taken on April 13, 2013 shows a screen showing a seven-year-old girl, who was infected with the H7N9 strain of bird flu, receiving medical treatment in the Beijing Ditan Hospital, during a press conference held by the hospital in Beijing, capital of China. This was the first such case in the Chinese capital. The child is in stable condition. Two people who have had close contact with the child have not shown any flu symptoms, and the girl's parents were engaged in live poultry trading in a township of Shunyi District in Beijing's northeastern suburbs. (Xinhua/Zhang Yu)
A seven-year-old girl in Beijing has become infected with the H7N9 bird flu strain, the first such case in the Chinese capital, local health authorities said Saturday.
The case was confirmed following a test by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention early Saturday.
The child is being treated at Beijing Ditan Hospital and is in stable condition, Zhong Dongbo, deputy director of the municipal health bureau, said at a press briefing.
The girl developed flu symptoms, including fever, cough, sore throat and headache, Thursday morning. She was brought to Beijing Ditan Hospital to seek medical treatment around noon and was then hospitalized for a lung infection.
The child received the drug Tamiflu, as well as intravenous drips on Thursday night, and was later transferred to an intensive care unit after her condition worsened. After oxygen therapy and other treatment, her coughing eased markedly and her body temperature fell to 37 degrees Celsius from 40.2 degrees Celsius, said Cheng Jun, deputy president of the hospital.
"The girl's temperature was close to normal in the morning and she ate a small bowl of porridge for breakfast. A couple of hours later she asked a nurse to bring her a chocolate pie, as she was hungry again," said Cheng.
The girl's parents, the only two people who have had close contact with her, are under quarantine but have not shown any flu symptoms, Zhong said.
Zhong added that the parents were engaged in live poultry trading in a township in the Shunyi District in Beijing's northeastern suburbs.
The case in Beijing and two more discovered in Jiangsu Province on Saturday raised the number of H7N9 infections in China to 46, with all of the cases except the Beijing case located in east China. The first known human infections of the deadly virus have claimed the lives of 11 people, according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
According to the commission, China's confirmed H7N9 cases are isolated and there has been no sign of human-to-human transmission.
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