The Chinese capital reported its first case of a new strain of bird flu that has killed 11 people and sickened 37 others in eastern China, officials said Saturday, The Associated Press reported. The 7-year-old girl, whose parents are in the live poultry trade, was admitted to a Beijing hospital Thursday with symptoms of fever, sore throat, coughing and headache. The case in China's capital is the first one reported outside eastern China, where the virus was first spotted in late March, prompting massive slaughtering of live fowl and bans on the poultry trade in several cities, according to the AP. Health officials believe people are contracting the H7N9 virus through direct contact with infected fowl and say there is no evidence the virus is spreading easily among people. China has been more open in its response to the new virus than it was a decade ago with an outbreak of SARS, when authorities hid the information from the public.
