GUANGZHOU - South China's Guangdong province reported its second human infection of H7N9 bird flu of the new year on Tuesday.

A 36-year-old man in the city of Dongguan was confirmed infected with the H7N9 virus on Tuesday, the provincial health and family planning commission said in statement.

The man is in critical condition at a local hospital, it said.

On Monday, Shenzhen, a coastal city in Guangdong that borders Hong Kong, also reported a human infection of H7N9 bird flu as a six-year-old girl contracted the virus.

Authorities in Guangdong and Hong Kong last week culled thousands of chickens after exports to Hong Kong were found to be infected with the virus.

Hong Kong raised its response level in hospitals to "serious" from "alert", after a 68-year-old woman was hospitalized on Dec. 25 with H7N9, the region's first case since early 2014. The woman had arrived from Shenzhen two weeks before.