Two men, aged 27 and 87, have died in the Chinese city of Shanghai after catching a strain of bird flu not previously known in humans, officials say.
The men, aged 27 and 87, both fell ill with the H7N9 strain in February and died some weeks later in March, Xinhua news agency reported.
A woman of 35 who caught the virus elsewhere is said to be critically ill.
It is unclear how the strain spread, but the three did not infect each other or any close contacts, officials say.
An important document - because it lays out in detail just what a high-level team that went to China found during their travels. And it is disturbing: the virus has 6 internal genes of H9N2, with the H7 HA and N9 NA - the first time the latter has been seen in humans. I note that H9N2 keeps popping up in humans, but is not so nasty: the H7N9, however, is a low pathogenicity virus in chickens, but severe in humans.