China has issued a warning over a deadly new strain of bird flu that has claimed the life of one woman.<br /><br />The new virus, called H10N8, has so far infected two people – a fatal case in a 73-year-old and another in a woman who’s critically ill in hospital.<br /><br />Chen Ze, a researcher at Shanghai Institute of Biological Products said: “the virus can survive in low temperatures and therefore we need to increase our monitoring of poultry farms.”<br /><br />The fact that it has jumped from birds to humans is of great concern to researchers. Investigators say the dead woman had been at a live poultry market but no virus samples were found so the source of the infection remains unknown.<br /><br />Chinese scientists writing in The Lancet medical journal who conducted a genetic analysis on samples of the H10N8 virus from the woman who died said it was a new genetic reassortment of other strains of bird flu viruses, including one called H9N2<br />that is relatively well known in poultry in China.
