Twelve people have been killed by H7N9 bird flu in a single Chinese province this month, according to state media.
The deaths occurred in the eastern province of Zhejiang, the state-run Xinhua news agency said, citing local health authorities.
The report came as China was said to have dropped its previous description of H7N9 bird flu as "infectious" in new guidelines on how to deal with the disease.
The National Health and Family Planning Commission described it as a "communicable acute respiratory disease" in its 2014 diagnosis and treatment protocols.
In the 2013 version it was considered an "infectious disease".
The Beijing Times on Monday quoted an unnamed Beijing disease control centre official saying that health authorities decided to "downgrade" the virus on the basis that nearly a year of analysis had shown H7N9 was "not strongly infectious".
The H7N9 human outbreak began in China in February 2013 and reignited fears that a bird flu virus could mutate to become easily transmissible between people, potentially triggering a pandemic.
The guidelines come as human cases undergo a seasonal spike, with at least 95 cases confirmed in mainland China so far this month, leading to 18 deaths, according to an AFP tally of reports.
More than half have been in Zhejiang, with 24 in Guangdong in the south.
That compares with 144 confirmed cases, including 46 deaths, in the whole of 2013 according to official statistics.
It was not clear whether the rise in reported cases is due to the virus becoming more widespread and possibly less severe, or detection and treatment improving.
Cases and deaths dropped significantly after the end of June, but have begun to pick up with the onset of winter.
"So far, most cases have been sporadic and there were some cluster outbreaks among family members," the commission said in the guidelines.
"But there is no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission yet," it said, although it added that "limited" and "unsustained" infections could not be ruled out.
Share
