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While China's health authorities say they haven't found any traces of bird flu in dead pigs found floating in Shanghai's Huangpu river... Which supplies drinking water to the city's 23 million residents.
PKG
Two men in Shanghai, aged 87 and 27, fell sick in late February and died in early March.
A woman in Anhui province also contracted the virus in early March and is in critical condition.
According to the World Health Organisation, these three are isolated cases - with no evidence of human-to-human transmission.
China's National Health and Family Planning Commission confirmed on Sunday that the three cases were the H7N9 virus, which had not previously been known to infect humans.
It also however said the virus doesn't seem highly contagious, because no health abnormalities were detected among 88 of the victims' close contacts.
But authorities are unsure as to how the three became infected...
And some say they took too long to announce their deaths on Sunday.
But a WHO representative said the government acted properly, as the deaths needed to be investigated.
Many microbloggers are voicing suspicions, that the latest outbreak of bird flu is linked to the more than 16,000 dead pigs recently fished out of rivers around Shanghai...
Sparking panic amongst the public, over water safety.
On Monday, Shanghai authorities tested 34 samples of pig carcasses pulled from the Huangpu River and found no bird flu viruses...
While Shanghai's health bureau has ordered hospitals to strengthen monitoring and supervision of respiratory illness cases.
The WHO spokesman says the pigs are part of the investigation, and there's no evidence yet, of any connection to bird flu.
