評論
打印
Now the news continues.
A spate of bird flu cases since the beginning of the year in China has experts watching closely as millions of people are on the move ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.
China has reported more than 50 H7N9 infections in this year after the strain jumped from birds to people for the first time last year.
The virus remains hard to catch and most cases have been linked to contact with poultry, but scientists worry that could change if it mutates into a form that allows it to spread easily among people.
For those who track influenza, the holiday is always worrying because it comes during the winter months when flu typically rages. Add that to hundreds of millions of people crammed together on buses and other forms of transportation going home, and it's always a bit of a gamble.
China estimates 3.6 billion trips will be taken over the holiday season.
The first H7N9 cases were reported in late March last year near Shanghai, and more than 200 others have since been identified, including some 50 deaths.
A 31-year-old doctor in Shanghai became one of the latest fatalities, raising fears he may have been infected at the hospital where he worked.
But none of his patients or other close contacts has reported flu symptoms. That was according to the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning.
Blood donations in the Chinese capital have been falling slightly for three consecutive years, and legislation is needed to ensure supplies.
Ge Hong-wei, an official from the Beijing Red Cross Blood Center, did not specify the amount of blood donated, or by how much it had dropped in the past three years.
But she emphasized that the city used more blood than any other city in the country in 2009, and the amount of blood used has been increasing by about 15 percent annually, widening the gap between supply and demand.
Part of the reason for the decrease was the Red Cross Society of China misuse of financial donations scandals in recent years when the public started questioning the credibility of non-profit organizations, including the blood centers.
About 90 percent of the blood donated in Beijing is collected on the streets from random volunteers, making it important to set up more blood collecting stations on busy streets and railway stations to attract donations.
However, the official says it takes a lot of time and effort to get these facilities into the "hot spots".
