Medical news from China: the Wednesday headlines

Non-smokers who working in restaurants in China have a much higher risk of serious disease and death from exposure to second hand smoke,  researchers in Beijing have shown. In a study published in PLOS Medicine, researchers showed that there were thousands of excess deaths among non-smokers who worked as staff in restaurants and bars in China.
"These health risks and deaths can be prevented by banning smoking in restaurants and bars and effectively implementing these smoking bans," they said.

Two more cases of H7N9 influenza have been reported in Shanghai this week. A 58-year-old woman and a 56-year-old man shave been hospitalised with the infection, the Shanghai Health and Family Planning Commission said yesterday. It was not reported whether they had contact with live poultry.

Also in Shanghai, the rate of gallstones in the city has reached 10% due to unhealthy lifestyles such as high-fat diets, medical experts have said. Doctors from Shanghai Hongkang Hospital said they treated about 5,000 gallstone patients a year, two to three times the number of five years ago.

A novel bacteria has been found in China's water supply and it could pose a great threat to health, doctors from Guangzhou have warned. The tropical cyanobacterium Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii was found in most reservoirs for drinking water supply in Dongguan they report in the journal Environmental Monitoring and Assessment.