Shanghai bans trading of live poultry Health workers collect bags of dead chicken at Huhuai wholesale agricultural market in Shanghai The government of Shanghai has banned the sale of live poultry, shut markets and started slaughtering birds as the death toll from a new strain of bird flu in eastern China climbed to six. By Friday afternoon, 16 people, with ages ranging from four to 87, had been diagnosed with the H7N9 avian influenza virus, which had never been found in humans before it was publicly identified by Chinese health authorities last Sunday. There is so far no evidence that the new strain has been able to jump from person to person but virologists say it is extremely virulent in humans and appears to be highly lethal. "Currently the situation seems to be much more serious than previous cases of bird flu, although still no comparison to the Sars [outbreak] in spring 2003," said Lu Ting, China economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The ongoing bird flu could have a sizeable impact on the economy, so investors are justified in being cautious. On Thursday, the Shanghai authorities said a person who came into close contact with one of the patients who died had been placed under quarantine after they developed a fever and itchy throat, but there was currently no evidence that the person in quarantine had contracted H7N9. Adding to the difficulty of identifying and containing the virus is the fact that the H7N9 strain does not make birds very sick and so it is much harder to detect than other strains of bird flu such as H5N1, which kills large numbers of birds. Several of the people infected worked in poultry markets or transporting birds, and on Friday the Shanghai government banned all live poultry trading in the city, according to state media, and slaughtered as many as 20,000 birds in at least one market where pigeons had tested positive for the disease. Prices of US-traded corn and soybeans fell to their lowest since the middle of last year on Thursday because of fears that the outbreak would reduce Chinese demand for poultry feed, and on Friday Hong Kong-listed shares fell to their lowest level in more than four months. Concern that air travel will be affected if the outbreak worsens sent Hong Kong-listed shares in China's three dominant state-owned airlines down by about 10 per cent each. Vietnam, which has been affected by previous outbreaks of bird flu and other diseases originating in China, said it had banned poultry imports from China because of the risk of H7N9. Hong Kong authorities have activated an "alert response level" plan that involves monitoring of chicken farms, vaccination, suspension of live bird imports from mainland China, culling drills and body temperature checks on people arriving from China. On Friday, Hong Kong officials said a seven-year-old girl from the territory has been put into isolation and is being tested for H7N9 after she exhibited flu symptoms following a trip to Shanghai where she came into contact with birds. Passengers on flights in and out of Hong Kong and those arriving in Japan from China have been asked to notify airline or airport staff or seek immediate medical attention if they feel unwell. In the US, the White House said it was monitoring the situation while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it has begun working with international agencies to prepare a vaccine if needed. It said commercial production of a vaccine would take five to six months and would reduce production of ordinary flu vaccines. The spread of the new disease through eastern China comes almost exactly 10 years since the Sars virus originated in south China and caused panic throughout the world. But unlike then, when the Chinese government initially went to great lengths to cover up the outbreak, Beijing has pledged to provide full transparency and real-time information on the spread of H7N9.