Summary: Have you heard of H7N9 before? It’s being called “the new bird flu”, and I’ll tell you about it today. Happy Monday! You’re listening to ESLnewscast.com’s DailyCast podcast. I’m Cory Renzella, and thank you for listening. Since February, a new kind of bird flu has killed six people and infected about a dozen more in eastern parts of China, including Shanghai. The flu, which is the short name for influenza, is a dangerous viral infection that makes people sick and can sometimes kill them. If it’s a bird flu, that means it originated, or came from, birds and spread, or was passed on, to humans. H7N9 is the name of this new kind of bird flu, and because it is new, we don’t know much about it. But now that six people have already died, we do know that it is deadly. China’s government is reacting to these deaths from H7N9 by taking a lot of precautions, which are safety measures meant to prevent more deaths from happening. Also, it doesn’t want the virus to spread across the country or to other countries. The government has already killed tens of thousands of pigeons, which are a kind of bird, that were being sold at markets in Shanghai. It was necessary to kill all of these birds, since the government doesn’t know which birds, if any, are infected. That’s because birds with H7N9 don’t show any symptoms, or signs, of the virus. As you can imagine, that makes it very difficult to know if and where it has already spread. Even worse, if the virus does spread, it could become more powerful and therefore, more difficult to stop. That’s bad news. But there is also some good news. So far, H7N9 doesn’t appear to be spreading easily between humans. In other words, if one person has it, they might not be able to easily infect the people around them. And only a few people have gotten this flu. So, hopefully it won’t become an epidemic, or widespread occurrence. But as I said, the government in China believes that it could become an epidemic, so it is taking a lot of precautions. And in the rest of the world, many people can only watch, wait, and hope that H7N9 doesn’t come to their country. ~~~~~~~~~~ Have you heard about this new kind of bird flu? Does it worry you? If you live in China, are you doing anything special to protect yourself? And if you live in other countries, do you feel concerned, or worried, at all? Leave a comment on our website, and let us know your thoughts! ESLnewscast.com is “Your English Window to the World”, and wherever you are in the world, I hope you have a good day. Thanks for listening, and I’ll talk to you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.
