25 May 2013 (13:49 UTC-07 Tango)/15 Rajab 1434/04 Khordad 1392/16 Ding-Si (4th month) 4711

“Under appropriate conditions human to human transmission of the H7N9 virus may be possible.”-Infectivity, Transmission, and Pathology of Human H7N9 Influenza in Ferrets and Pigs

“We also found that the virus can infect pigs, which was not previously known……People may be transmitting the virus before they even know that   they’ve got it.”-Maria Zhu Huachen, Hong Kong University

As I’ve been warning since I first started reporting on the H7N9 outbreak in March, it is human to human!  If you go over all my H7N9 updates, you’ll notice that very few birds are infected.  More than 90% of infected poultry were found at live markets, where they come into contact with lots-o-humans.  I’ve postulated that the chickens are getting infected from contact with humans.

To back that up, not one chicken or duck on a farm has been found to be infected.  Not one poultry sent to the industrial butcher shops has been found to be infected, just the ones in live markets.

And to add to that, China’s Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) just released their latest H7n9 testing data (on 23 May 2013), and yet again not one bird on a poultry farm was positive!   They’ve tested a total of 899758 samples, here’s the results: Only 53 positive results out of the hundreds of thousands of samples!  51 were in live markets.  The other two were wild pigeons.  The MOA says they are done testing birds for H7N9. 

The resulting paranoia about getting H7N9 from chickens and ducks has resulted in China’s poultry industry losing $6.5 billion USD.  Poultry markets around Asia are expected to see huge loses as more and more countries join in banning innocent but delicious chickens and ducks.

The biggest biological threat to poultry markets is still H5N1, not H7N9.

How many humans have gotten sick?  So far 132 infected with 36 deaths.  By the way, research is showing this new H7N9 is an airborne disease which means washing your hands won’t do you much good.