英闻天下——608 H7N9 "Unusually Dangerous" for People: WHO（在线收听）

　　The virus has infected more than 100 people here in China, seriously sickening most of them.

　　Liang Wannian, Director of the H7N9 Influenza Prevention and Control Office in Beijing, is warning this number is going to rise.

　　"The sporadic cases probably will emerge and places of infected cases reported will expand before the infection source has been completely confirmed and effectively controlled."

　　World Health Organization experts are here in China as part of a current WHO inspection to assess how the Chinese authorities are coping with the new strain of bird flu.

　　The experts have praised China's prevention and control efforts, saying the measures have been swift and effective.

　　But WHO assistant Director-General Keiji Fukuda admits the strain of H7N9 is more dangerous that other types of bird flu viruses.

　　"When we look at influenza viruses, this is an unusually dangerous virus for humans. There are some other examples of influenza viruses which are very dangerous for humans. You know, I think the H5N1 bird flu virus is one of the famous examples of how dangerous influenza virus can be for people in terms of being lethal. But this is definitely one of the most lethal influenza viruses that we've seen so far."

　　Fakuda admits their understanding of this new strain, and how it's passed along, is very limited.

　　"Right now, based on the evidence we've seen, again I want to stress that we are at the beginning of understanding of this virus. But based on the evidence we've seen, we think that the viruses more easily transmitted from poultry to human than H5N1."

　　The WHO is monitoring the spread of the disease to try to ensure it doesn't become a global problem.

　　However, at this point the scientists say it's their belief the virus can't spread easily from human-to-human, which should keep the threat of the virus going international to a minimum.

　　Health officials say they believe the infections are primarily taking place at live poultry markets.

　　Meanwhile, disease control officials in the Sichuan quake zones have also been told to step up monitoring for the H7N9 strain of bird flu.

　　So far there have been no cases reported in Sichuan.

　　For CRI, this is Li Jing.