First case of new bird flu strain found outside eastern China

The Chinese capital reported its first case of a new strain of bird flu on Saturday, state news agency Xinhua said, the first time it has been found in a human outside eastern China.

The seven-year-old girl was in stable condition in a Beijing hospital, the report said.

Two people who have had close contact with the child had shown no signs of being infected, Xinhua added. The girl's parents worked in the live poultry trade, it said.

The website of China's state radio showed a photo of the girl lying in bed, wearing a large blue face mask and with a stuffed doll next to her.

Beijing had closed all live poultry markets and banned the flying of racing pigeons, though it had not ordered a mass culling of birds since authorities had yet to find H7N9 in any animal samples, Xinhua said.

So far 11 people have died of the H7N9 bird flu strain since it was confirmed in humans for the first time last month, with 46 infections having been reported to date.

Shanghai and the eastern provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui had been the only confirmed locations of infection until the Beijing case.

Xinhua said the virus could have been carried into China by migratory birds who then infected poultry.

The new virus has caused severe illness in most people affected, leading to fears that if it becomes easily transmissible, it could cause a deadly influenza pandemic, though there has been no indication of that happening.

In a bid to calm public jitters over the virus, Chinese authorities have detained a dozen people for spreading rumors about the spread of bird flu.

Yum says bird flu hits China April sales; March down

 KFC parent Yum Brands Inc warned that a new bird flu outbreak in China badly hit restaurant sales there this month, even as the company also reported a sharper-than-expected slide in March sales in the country caused by the lingering impact of a separate food safety scare.

"Within the past week, publicity associated with Avian flu in China has had a significant, negative impact on KFC sales," the company said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday.

Yum did not quantify the impact.

The bird flu outbreak has already sickened 33 and killed nine, as Chinese authorities try to clamp down on rumors about the deadly virus and its potential spread.

Yum reaps more than half its overall sales in China, where most of its nearly 5,300 restaurants are KFCs. It was already struggling in the country after chemical residue was found in a small portion of its chicken supply late last year.

"This will set them back a little bit. If those (bird flu casualty) numbers go up, then the impact could be longer," said Edward Jones analyst Jack Russo.

Sales at Yum's China restaurants open at least one year fell 13 percent in March, more than the 10 percent average drop expected by analysts polled by Consensus Matrix.

The March results included a 16 percent drop at KFC and a 4 percent rise at Pizza Hut.

The company plans to educate consumers, as it has done in the past, that properly cooked chicken is safe to eat, Yum said in Wednesday's filing.

In February, KFC's sales were flat in China, which had given analysts some hope a turnaround was already taking hold.

While the March results were disappointing, they may show that the effects of the timing shift of the all-important Chinese New Year holiday on January and February were bigger than expected.

"I don't think we should interpret this, necessarily, as a step back," Sanford Bernstein research analyst Sara Senatore said.

Yum shares fell more than 2 percent to $65.20 in extended trading following the report. Yum's stock traded around $72 in late March before reports of the first deaths from the novel strain of avian flu.