The 57-year-old wife of the city’s first avian influenza virus (AIV) victim tested negative for the H7N9 strain, the Health Bureau (SSM) said in a statement yesterday.
The victim, a 58-year-old poultry stall owner at the Nan Yue Supply Market, tested positive for the virus on Tuesday after handling infected chickens that morning.
SSM officials contacted the man in the afternoon at his home in Ilha Verde after discovering the H7N9 strain in silkie chicken samples at the market earlier on Tuesday. The bureau later confirmed that he was the only local who had been in close contact with the infected poultry.
This photo taken yesterday shows several closed poultry stalls at the Sao Domingos Municipal Market Complex in the city centre, because of a temporary ban on all sales of live poultry in the city, following the confirmation of Macau’s first case of human bird flu infection on Tuesday. Photo: Annie Cheung
