China is investigating the possibility of human-to-human transmission of the new bird flu strain H7N9 that has killed 17 people in the country, after a state health agency suspected that such a transmission has occurred in a family in Shanghai. The China Center for Disease Prevention and Control on Wednesday said that the 87-year-old father in this family died on March 4 after contracting the new virus strain and became the first death from the strain in China. Five days later, the elder of his two sons was hospitalized with pneumonia and recovered later, the Chinese National Health and Family Planning Commission said on Wednesday at a media briefing. Meanwhile, the results of a test conducted on the other son are not yet available. Previous reports said that the father had not been outside his home during the two weeks before he contracted the deadly virus strain, China Daily reported. "Further investigations are still under way to figure out whether the family cluster involved human-to-human transmission," China Daily quoted Feng Zijian, director of the health emergency center of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as saying. According to Zijian, human-to-human transmission is possible, but is highly sporadic. He called on people not to panic, “because such limited human-to-human transmission will not prompt a pandemic,” according to U.S. News.

People infected with H7N9 can transmit the virus within a period of time, in which they could possibly infect others, but that is highly rare and could be limited to within a family, Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist with China CDC, was quoted by China Daily as saying. Feng explained that only genetically vulnerable groups like close family members might be get infected. As of Thursday, China has reported 87 human infections of H7N9, including 17 deaths. In order to help China cope with the H7N9 spread, an international team of experts, including some from the World Health Organization, have been deployed to investigate the disease in the country, U.S. News reported yesterday. It is too early to say if there have been human-to-human transmissions of the H7H9 virus, but this team will investigate the possibility, Glenn Thomas, a spokesperson for WHO, tells U.S. News.