An 83 year-old woman in Guangzhou died in the small hours of Sunday (yesterday) morning after being diagnosed with the H7N9 avian flu the day before, the Guangdong Health and Family Planning Commission has confirmed. This brings the death toll in the province up to three, ifeng reports.

Mrs. Yang, who lived in Liwan District, took ill on January 2. She was taken to hospital six days later. On Saturday (Jan. 18) she was confirmed to be suffering from the avian influenza H7N9 and died of respiratory and circulatory failure the following morning. It has been confirmed that she would slaughter poultry in her own home.

The good news is that the two people in Shenzhen who were diagnosed with the illness, one on Dec. 19, another on Jan. 7 have both been discharged from hospital. As of yesterday, there had been 23 cases and three deaths in Guangdong Province.

Yang Xingfen at the Guangdong Provincial People’s Congress suggested among other things the centralisation of poultry slaughtering and measures to ensure more sanitary conditions in poultry markets.

A paper by the US National Library of Medicine had its own ideas about Guangdong’s handling of the flu:

Our findings provide insight into the attitudes and practices of employees of food production and operation 3 months after the first human A/H7N9 case reported in China, and 1 month after infected chickens were identified in Guangzhou. Distrust in the health department should be addressed, and more effort should be made to improve compliance of proper preventive measures to reduce panic among the public. The information needs should be taken into account in the next step of health education.

There is no sign yet that the worst is over.