Staff from Hangzhou's disease prevention department sterilize a closed poultry market on Friday. Long Wei / for China Daily

Hangzhou, the capital of eastern China's Zhejiang province, has suspended the trading of live poultry in order to halt the spread of the H7N9 bird flu virus.

The city banned the trading in its main urban areas on Friday, according to local health and industrial and commercial departments.

Staff from the city's disease prevention and control department will sterilize the closed markets, and live poultry such as chickens, ducks and other birds will be collected, inspected and treated, according to local health authorities.

The city also will closely monitor domestic fowl at poultry farms, as well as the habitats of migratory birds, authorities said.

"Local urban management departments also will increase the supervision of residents who raise poultry," said Wang Boli, an official with Hangzhou's industrial and commercial department.

"In addition, we will expand daily patrols in case peddlers try to sell live poultry illegally," he told China Central Television.

On Friday, the province reported seven new human H7N9 cases, bringing the province's total to 44, the highest in the nation.