Tag Archives: flu

International

H7N9 update: More cases, more deaths! Attacking all age groups! Blame pigeons?

04 April 2013 (12:12 UTC-07 Tango)/23 Jumada l-Ula 1434/15 Farvardin 1391/24 Yi-Mao (2nd month) 4711

China reporting five new cases, two more people dead!  A total of 14 cases of a new deadly H7N9 since the end of March, five deaths.

The latest cases are in Zhejiang Province and Shanghai.  One man who died worked with poultry.  Four of the five deaths took place in Shanghai.

The new flu is not picky about your age.  Most sick people are in their 20s to 40s, but one man who died was in his 80s.  One of the new cases is a four years old girl.

China’s Ministry of Agriculture say they’ve found the new strain of H7N9 in pigeons in Songjiang District of Shanghai.

 

Influenza

H7N9 update: WHO scrambling to find vaccine that works! New strain is combination of 3 old strains! Resistant to Tamiflu!

04 April 2013 (18:50 UTC-07 Tango 03 April 2013)/23 Jumada l-Ula 1434/15 Farvardin 1392/24 Yi-Mao (2nd month) 4711

“It is not yet known how these persons became infected. The possibility of animal-to-human transmission is being investigated, as is the possibility of person-to-person transmission.”-UN World Health Organization statement

“This thing doesn’t any longer look like a poultry virus. It really looks to me like it’s adapted in a mammalian host somewhere.”-Richard Webby, UN WHO center for influenza studies at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Tennessee U.S.A.

The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) says the genetic make up of the new H7N9 contains genes from several different bird flus.

Those other viruses include H9N2 which seems to be specific to China and South Korea.  Others are H7N7, which is highly infectious, and the H3N2 virus that is resistant to Tamiflu treatment.

The UN World health organization held a press conference in which they tried to calm things down by saying there is no pandemic, yet.  They then went on to say they were grabbing at straws, studying whether existing vaccines could work on the new virus.

A day ago the U.S. CDC said they were scrambling to create a vaccine.

International

H7N9 update: China in official “crisis” mode! Poultry slaughtering halted!

03 April 2013/22 Jumada l-Ula 1434/14 Farvardin 1391/23 Yi-Mao (2nd month) 4711

China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission is ordering all health care providers, and local government officials to “foster a sense of crisis”, according to Japan’s NHK (Nippon Housou Kyoukai).

The H7N9 virus is not only a threat to people, but to China’s economy as well.

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention is ordering a halt to the use of poultry in upcoming Tomb-Sweeping Day.

Poultry are slaughtered for ritual sacrifice during the religious holiday.  The problem is that it’s now known that this new strain of H7N9 can not be detected in birds, and that infected birds have no symptoms.

 

International

H7N9 update: Hong Kong says we’re too late to stop pandemic!

03 April 2013/22 Jumada l-Ula 1434/14 Farvardin 1391/23 Yi-Mao (2nd month) 4711

“It already may be too late, but this is the small window of opportunity that really one has to grasp, as quickly as possible.”-Malik Peiris, University of Hong Kong

Health officials around the world are praising how openly and quickly China has brought in international researchers to deal with the new H7N9.  But it might be too late.

Researchers who’ve looked at the genetics of the H7N9 that killed the first two people (three have now died, all others cases are critical) say the virus is a silent killer.  It does not reveal itself until the victim is in critical condition (apparently the only sign is unexplained pneumonia).  Also, infected poultry show no signs at all, it can not be detected in birds until after they die!

Health officials are worried that this could mean the killer bird flu, which has mutated to infect humans, has already spread around the World in infected birds that can not be detected!

Business/Economics, International

H7N9 update: International health officials say it can not be detected! Paranoia about birds gripping people in Asia!

03 April 2013/22 Jumada l-Ula 1434/14 Farvardin 1391/23 Yi-Mao (2nd month) 4711

“We speculate that when this virus is maintained in poultry the disease will not appear, and similar in pigs, if they are infected, so nobody recognizes the infection in animals around them, then the transmission from animal to human may occur.”-Masato Tashiro, UN World Health Organization

Health researchers around the world have been given access to the H7N9 that killed the first two people in China.  It appears the virus is not detectable until the infection reaches critical stages.

A few days ago, Chinese health officials had instructed health care providers to report all unexplained pneumonia cases.

The news has people in some Asia countries so afraid of birds that poultry sales are crashing.  Some countries are banning imports of chickens and ducks from other countries.  Newspapers have published pics of people running away from ducks in parks.

Business/Economics, International

H7N9 update: Hong Kong says new flu can’t be detected in early stages!

03 April 2013/22 Jumada l-Ula 1434/14 Farvardin 1391/23 Yi-Mao (2nd month) 4711

“This reflects that either the virus is very serious, or the minor cases cannot be recognized by the frontline healthcare staff.”-Ko Wing-man, Hong Kong’s Secretary for Food & Health

Health officials in Hong Kong are scrambling to come up with a new test that can detect H7N9 in its early infection stage.   Officials point out that by the time the sick people in China were diagnosed with H7N9 they were already in critical condition, suggesting that H7N9 is not identifiable at the beginning of infection.

This also suggests that infected poultry do not show signs of H7N9 until close to death, which means potentially hundreds of thousands of imported poultry could be given a clean bill of health by inspectors.

Influenza

H7N9 update: Vietnam bans poultry imports from China! Two more cases reported, one person dies!

03 April 2013/22 Jumada l-Ula 1434/14 Farvardin 1392/23 Yi-Mao (2nd month) 4711

“If we don’t eradicate it pretty quickly, this virus will become endemic and spread across China and beyond China.”-Malik Peiris, University of Hong Kong.

Vietnam has been dealing with H5N1 bird flu outbreaks, now Vietnam’s Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry is banning all poultry from China, because of the new H7N9 bird flu.

This after China reported that a third person has died.  A man in Zhejiang Province died.  He was a cook working in Jiangsu Province. Just before the reports of his death health officials in that province revealed they had two cases of H7N9.  Zhejiang borders the other provinces that are also reporting human cases of H7N9.  All people infected are in critical condition.

International

H7N9 update: Japanese researchers say it can jump human to human, sounding warning!

03 April 2013/22 Jumada l-Ula 1434/14 Farvardin 1391/23 Yi-Mao (2nd month) 4711

Japanese researchers at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) have been studying the H7N9 virus, they’ve concluded it is possible for it to jump human to human!

Chinese health officials supplied H7N9 samples from the two people that died, and one woman in critical condition.

NIID researchers concluded that all three samples had mutated to infect humans.  The samples came from two different areas, but researchers say they were identical indicating the same strain of H7N9 had rapidly spread over a large area.

They also point out that normally H7 strains are not considered deadly, but humans have no immunity to the new H7N9, and there is no vaccine, so they believe health warnings should be issued.

International

H7N9 update: It’s spreading! Getting pneumonia for no apparent reason might be a sign of H7N9!

02 April 2013/21 Jumada l-Ula 1434/13 Farvardin 1391/22 Yi-Mao (2nd month) 4711

Health officials in Jiangsu Province reporting one man and three women now infected with H7N9.

Jiangsu Province borders Shanghai, where two men died from the new bird flu.  Anhui Province, where a women infected with H7N9 is in critical condition, also borders Jiangsu Province.

Chinese national health officials have now ordered emergency monitoring.  Of concern is a growing number of pneumonia cases that seem to have no cause. The city of Shanghai has ordered that all unexplainable pneumonia cases be reported!

To show you how big this could be, Jiangsu Province has designated 16 hospitals as H7N9 hospitals. The four people who are sick are all in critical condition.  They all live in different areas of the province.  Health officials suspect they got infected sometime in the middle of March.  They were hospitalized by the end of March.  Test results were in by 01 and 02 April, confirming H7N9.

One woman is known to be a poultry culler.  Health officials are also monitoring people who’ve been in recent contact with the four new cases.