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The new bird influenza thats killed six people in eastern China has some of the genetic hallmarks of an easily transmissible virus, according to the scientist who showed how H5N1 avian flu could become airborne.

The H7N9 strain, which is a new virus formed as a result of two others merging their genetic material, has features of viruses that are known to jump easily from birds to mammals, and a mutation that may help it attach to cells in the respiratory tract, said Ron Fouchier, a professor of molecular virology at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, in a telephone interview yesterday.

Thats certainly not good news, said Fouchier, who reviewed a gene sequencing of H7N9 published by Chinese health authorities. This virus really doesnt look like a bird virus anymore; it looks like a mammalian virus.

To curb the spread of H7N9, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing, cities with confirmed human cases of the virus, have halted trading in live poultry, closed bird markets and slaughtered more than 20,000 fowl. Shanghai today reported two new infections, taking Chinas tally to 18, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News from reports released by the national and provincial governments.

The outbreak caused soybean futures and airline stocks to fall yesterday on concern the virus may spark a pandemic.

While theres no evidence yet of human-to-human transmission, scientists are scrutinizing the viruss genetic makeup for clues to the threat it may pose.

Fouchier authored a study last year that showed five genetic tweaks to the deadly H5N1 virus, which has killed more than 600 people since 2003, made it airborne in ferrets, the mammals whose response to flu most closely resembles that of humans.

One of the mutations he made is in an enzyme called polymerase; another was in a protein called hemagglutinin on the surface of the virus. H7N9 has both mutations, he said.

This virus is certainly of more concern than the vast majority of bird flu viruses, Fouchier said. Most bird flu viruses that we know do not have these mutations.

Whether those mutations alone are enough to make the virus easily transmissible isnt clear, and should be high on the research agenda, Fouchier said. Still, theres no evidence yet that the virus is more likely to become more dangerous than H5N1, he said.

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New Bird Flu Seen Having Some Markers of Airborne Killer