The new strain of bird flu was found to cause suffocation and as a result, shut down the body's vital organs. Chinese health officials reported that a 52-year-old woman died when the damage to her lungs became severe. The new H7N9 avian flu virus attacked her lungs, causing suffocation, and her organs rapidly stopped working. 

Doctors at Huashan Hospital in Shanghai reported details of the woman's avian flu case in the journal Emerging Microbes & Infections. The retired woman fell ill with a high fever of 105.1 Fahrenheit on March 27. She was given antibiotics and steroids intravenously and was eventually placed on a ventilator. The Shanghai woman died one week later, on April 3, when all efforts to combat the avian flu failed.

"What they had here was a seriously ill patient and they didn't know what was going on. This person was so ill, they just threw everything at her," Director of the Institute of Clinical Pathology and Medical Research at Sydney's Westmead Hospital Dominic Dwyer said.

The first avian flu case to be detailed in a medical journal explains the suffocation caused by this new strain. Within the past two months, 10 people have died and 35 people have fallen ill. When the woman was admitted to the hospital, it was unclear what her illness was, until tests identified the avian flu H7N9 virus after her death.

Since then, over two dozen more cases were seen of the deadly virus that health officials now know causes suffocation of the lungs.