An unidentified illness has killed 17 farmers and sickened(1) 41 others in southwestern China after they butchered(2) sick pigs or sheep, China's official news agency said Sunday.

Over the past four weeks, 58 people from areas around the cities of Ziyang and Neijiang in China's southwestern Sichuan province were hospitalized with such symptoms(3), Xinhua said.

Seventeen died, while 39 remain hospitalized and two have recovered, it said.

The report said that medical experts believe the illness "is not spreading further among humans," and that there were "no obvious signs of (an) epidemic."

The report did not cite a suspected(4) cause of the sickness, but authorities in Hong Kong has said earlier Sunday that experts believe a bacterial(5) infection might be responsible for the deaths.

World Health Organization(6) spokesman Bob Dietz said the cases did not appear to be related to bird flu(7), a viral disease that has killed at least 57 people in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia since 2003.

The son of one of the victims told Hong Kong's Cable TV his father fell ill after slaughtering and eating part of a sick pig. The names of the son and victim were not given.

Pigs in the area had been infected with streptococcus(8) bacteria, which is common in domestic animals(9), a hospital worker treating the patients told Cable TV. It was unclear if the sick sheep in the area were infected with the same bacteria.

周日，中国官方新闻媒体称中国西南部一种原因不明疾病造成17名农民死亡和41名患病。这些农民是在屠杀过病猪和羊之后生病、死亡的。

新华称在过去的四周中，中国西南四川省的资阳及内江共有58人因此病就医。

新华说共有17人死亡，39人仍在医院治疗，2人康复。

报告称医学专家认为这种病不会在人与人之间传染，并没有明显迹象表明这是一种流行病。

报告没有说明致病死亡的原因，但是周日香港政府说专家认为可能是细菌感染造成的。

世界卫生组织发言人鲍勃·迪兹说这种情况看起来不像是禽流感。自从2003年，在越南，泰国，哥伦比亚和印尼已有至少57人死于禽流感。

其中一名受害者的儿子告诉香港有线电视说他的爸爸杀了一头病猪并且吃了一块病猪肉之后就生病了。媒体没有透露受害者及其儿子的名字。

一位在医院负责治疗病患的工作人员告诉有线电视说当地的猪感染了链球菌。但是当地的羊是否也感染了相同的病菌还不清楚。