WINNIPEG - Manitoba Health has reported a recent spike in flu activity across the province and says the dominant strain is H1N1.

That's the strain that claimed several hundred lives during the 2009 pandemic.

In a letter written to health care providers last week, the Public Health and Primary Health Care Division wrote that the current wave of influenza activity is expected to last several weeks.

Influenza surveillance data indicates that during the week of Feb. 21-27, there were 21 people hospitalized due to the flu, seven required intensive care and two died.

SASKATOON - The flu bug appears to be making the rounds at a Saskatchewan jail.

The Ministry of Corrections says as of Monday, there were 36 suspected cases of influenza A at the Saskatoon Correctional Centre.

Another case has been confirmed.

Drew Wilby, a ministry spokesman, says steps are being taken to minimize the number of inmates getting sick.

NEW DELHI - Health authorities were working to ensure remote hospitals in northern and western India had adequate medical supplies for a flu outbreak that has claimed more than 700 lives in 10 weeks.

More than 11,000 cases have been reported since mid-December with most of the cases being reported from Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh states.

Federal health minister J.P. Nadda asked people to remain alert and not panic as the numbers climbed. At a meeting Thursday, top health officials were told to ensure that medicines were freely available and 24-hour helplines were set up.

The ministry was closely monitoring the situation but there was no shortage of drugs to treat patients, its statement said. The preparedness of government-run hospitals and health clinics in the worst affected states was being watched and the availability of drugs monitored.

AMSTERDAM - Dutch authorities Friday said they will slaughter poultry at a cluster of three farms after new cases of bird flu were found in the town of Kamperveen, in the third outbreak in the Netherlands this week.

A new infection was detected Friday morning at a chicken farm in Kamperveen, roughly a hundred kilometres (60 miles) away from the previous infections, the Economic Affairs Ministry said. During a check of nearby farms, one farm was found with birds showing signs of illness.

At least 25,000 chickens and ducks are being slaughtered on the farms and the ministry said it has also ordered birds slaughtered at a third farm as a precaution, given its location within a kilometre (mile) radius of the first two.

The ministry said tests to determine the exact strain of the virus are being conducted. The earlier Dutch cases and another this week at a duck farm in England were confirmed as H5N8, which British officials said poses a very low public health risk.

CAIRO - Egypt's Health Ministry says swine flu has killed 24 people across the country over the past two months.

At a Tuesday news conference, the ministry's head of preventive medicine, Amr Qandeel, said 195 people have been hospitalized with the virus since Dec. 1, 2013. He added that so far the cases had been spread out through several areas, particularly the Nile Delta and Cairo. He encouraged those suffering from flu symptoms to seek medical attention early.

The ministry says that children and young adults are particularly vulnerable. Qandeel also says that two doctors had contracted the illness but that no medical personnel were among the dead.

In 2009, the global swine flu pandemic prompted Egyptian authorities to slaughter around 300,000 pigs previously used to dispose of the city's organic garbage. However, Jason McDonald, spokesman for the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says that the virus is now most often transmitted from human to human, and not through contact with pigs.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - A 2-year-old girl has become the 12th person to die of bird flu in Cambodia this year, authorities said Monday.

The girl died from the H5N1 bird flu virus on Oct. 26 after suffering from fever, difficulty in breathing and lethargy, the country's Health Ministry and the World Health Organization said in a joint statement.

The statement said that an investigation at the girl's village in the western province of Pursat revealed that two months before her illness, poultry had died suddenly at her grandparents' house, where she often stayed.

The H5N1 virus normally spreads between poultry, but can sometimes spread from poultry to humans.

BEIJING, China - Two more people have died in China from a new strain of bird flu, raising the death toll from the virus to 13, state media reported Sunday.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the two deaths were reported in Shanghai and that three new cases were also confirmed in the financial hub. A total of 11 new cases were reported Sunday — including two in a central province that previously had been unaffected. In all, 60 cases of the virus, known as H7N9, have been reported in China.

The two cases reported Sunday in central Henan province, which is next to Beijing, followed an announcement Saturday that a 7-year-old girl had become the first person in the capital to be infected with the virus. All previous reported cases were in Shanghai and other eastern areas of China.

A World Health Organization official said Sunday that it wasn't surprising that the virus had spread to Beijing.

A bird flu virus never before found in humans has grabbed world attention this week after it infected and killed people in China. Scientists have been scrambling to understand how it happened and, more importantly, whether it poses a risk to public health or could potentially spark a global pandemic.

The good news is that so far there's no sign that the H7N9 virus is spreading from person to person, but experts say it has mutated in a way that has left them a bit worried. Here's a crash course in Bird Flu 101 to help explain what's known about the strain and why it matters:

Q: What is the H7N9 virus and what do we know about it?

A: The H7N9 strain — named for the combination of proteins on its surface — has infected at least 14 people in China since February, killing five of them, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The latest cases were confirmed Thursday, four days after the initial announcement. Symptoms include fever and respiratory problems, including severe pneumonia. Much still remains unknown about the virus, including how people are getting infected, but scientists say it contains genetic markers that could help it infect humans. It is believed to be able to circulate in poultry stocks without sickening birds. This can allow it to spread in flocks unnoticed, making it much harder to track and also possibly creating more contamination since the birds are surviving and spending more time on farms, in markets and elsewhere.