A woman is critically ill in Hong Kong with the deadly H7N9 strain of bird flu, the first confirmed case in the city this winter.
The Hong Kong government said the 68-year-old woman was admitted to hospital on December 25 after falling ill last week.
The case has been classified as “imported” after it emerged the woman had recently been in the Longgang district of Shenzhen in mainland China.
Health minister Ko Wing-man said the woman had been with two friends in Shenzhen, where she had eaten “home-cooked chicken”, although she is not believed to have had contact with live poultry at markets.
The government is trying to track down friends of the woman who may have been exposed to the virus, the source of which had not been determined.
The first known human case of the H7N9 strain was reported in mainland China in March last year, according to the World Health Organisation.
The virus subsequently spread to Hong Kong last December where it killed three people.
All had contracted the virus in mainland China, according to Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection (CHP).
Officials at Hong Kong’s Health and Food and Environmental Health Departments were not available for comment.
Hong Kong hospitals have introduced measures to monitor and contain influenza infection, including cutting visitor hours, after the government raised the city’s influenza pandemic response level to “serious”, it said in a statement.
Hong Kong slaughtered 20,000 chickens in January after the virus was found in poultry imported from the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.
A four-month ban on live poultry imports from mainland China was then imposed to guard against the disease.
Mr Ko said the new response level would not affect the import of poultry for the time being, as “rapid testing” had been introduced to check birds for the disease.
“We will closely monitor the situation… then decide the appropriate measures,” he said.
Hong Kong is particularly alert to the spread of viruses after an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) swept through the city in 2003, killing 299 people and infecting around 1,800.
There have been 469 cases of H7N9 in mainland China since 2013, according to Hong Kong’s CHP.
Reuters/AFP