China Calling In Flu Experts From Around World as Outbreak Widens
Source: Bloomberg
Four international flu experts will arrive in China within days to help authorities respond to the country’s widening bird-flu emergency, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Nancy Cox, director of the flu division at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Anne Kelso, director of a World Health Organization flu research center in Melbourne, Malik Peiris from the University of Hong Kong, and Angus Nicoll, head of the Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s flu program, will arrive on about April 17 to offer technical advice, said the people, who declined to be identified because the Chinese government hasn’t announced that the experts are being invited.
The group will seek to assist Chinese authorities grappling to identify the source and mode of transmission of the H7N9 avian influenza that has infected at least 60 people and killed 13. Beijing yesterday said that a 7-year-old girl has the virus, and Henan province reported its first two cases, opening a new front in the spread of the new pathogen in the world’s most populous nation.
“There’s no way to predict how this will spread,” Michael O’Leary, the WHO’s China representative, told reporters in Beijing yesterday. “The good news is we have no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission. That’s a key factor in this situation.”
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-14/china-said-to-invite-four-flu-experts-as-disease-outbreak-widens.html
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Iliyah
(25,111 posts)And is it just chickens??????
cosmicone
(11,014 posts)The flu epidemic is not serious because the transmission occurs only from bird to bird and bird to man. Man to man transmission has not happened with this strain and thus it is not as dangerous. Only people who handled chickens intimately got sick but none of the humans that came in contact with the patients got sick.
China wants to make a big splash headline the make sure there is no population unrest because of the few fatalities.
enlightenment
(8,830 posts)Though I don't think the sky is falling, it is good to be accurate when making bold statements. The CDC defines this particular outbreak thus:
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/h7n9-virus.htm (emphasis in the clip below is mine)
This new H7N9 virus is an avian (bird) influenza (flu) virus. Human infections with avian influenza (AI, or “bird flu”) are rare but have occurred in the past, most commonly after exposure to infected poultry. However, this is the first time that this bird flu subtype (H7N9) has been found in people. This virus is very different from other H7N9 viruses previously found in birds.
An investigation by Chinese authorities is ongoing. H7N9 viruses have been detected in poultry in the same area where human infections have occurred. Many of the human cases of H7N9 are reported to have had contact with poultry. However some cases reportedly have not had such contact. Close contacts of confirmed H7N9 patients are being followed to see if any human-to-human spread of H7N9 might have occurred. Based on previous experience with other avian influenza viruses – most notably H5N1 – some limited human-to-human spread of this H7N9 virus would not be surprising. Most importantly, however, no sustained person-to-person spread of the H7N9 virus has been found at this time. Ongoing (sustained) person-to-person spread is necessary for a pandemic to occur.
This is a “novel” (non-human) virus and therefore has the potential to cause a pandemic if it were to change to become easily and sustainably spread from person-to-person. So far, this virus has not been determined to have that capability. However, influenza viruses constantly change and it’s possible that this virus could gain that ability. CDC takes routine preparedness actions whenever a new virus with pandemic potential is identified, including developing a candidate vaccine virus to make a vaccine if it were to be needed. There is no licensed H7 vaccine available at this time.
cosmicone
(11,014 posts)I stand by my statement. They will eventually find a bird-human contact in all cases.
This type of an influenza virus has been around a long time and there are periodic outbreaks routinely. It has never jumped to have human to human transmission. Just because someone at CDC issued a CYA statement doesn't make it a serious probability.
NickB79
(19,233 posts)Why should this one be any different? There is nothing about it's genetic or proteomic structure that makes it IMPOSSIBLE to mutate into a human-to-human strain. It may have a low probability of making the jump, but the consequences of that jump would be dire. Thus, it makes sense to treat the risk seriously for the time being.
Just curious, but what is your background and training on infectious diseases anyway?
cosmicone
(11,014 posts)is fine. Panicking and dancing like a chicken with its head cut off is not.
I might reveal personal info if I described in detail.
Stuckinthebush
(10,844 posts)agreed....
byeya
(2,842 posts)mutation to create a virus that goes from human to human.
Although this is not a main problem in China, the deforestation and general disruption of ecosystems through surface mining
and the like, bring humans into contact with pathogens that have been in existance for a long time but have not had humans
to work with until the environmental disruptions.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)cosmicone
(11,014 posts)
FourScore
(9,704 posts)You're making blanket statements without substance.
Recombinants -- It's real.
The virus is a potential threat. H7N9 could, and hopefully will, go the way of other potentially dangerous illnesses such as H1N1 and SARS. But, to make arrogant statements like you are making without science to back them up discredits you, not the OP.
cosmicone
(11,014 posts)somewhere in the world. They do not result in a pandemic.
Anything is possible -- a meteor might wipe the earth out one day but does that mean you spend 24/7 with a telescope looking for one?
The odds of this strain creating human to human transmission are close to zero. I agree that they are not zero but creating panick is unwarranted.
siligut
(12,272 posts)You make the point yourself, hopefully it will go the way of other avian viruses which infected humans who had direct contact with birds but failed to become communicable between humans.*
There are reasons these viruses didn't make the jump and there is no reason, at this time, to believe that H7N9 will be any different.
As you say, one potential way that H7N9 could make the jump is to be incubated in a human who is already infected with H1N1 or H3N2 and thus China is pulling out the stops and Russia tightened its border to the region.
* There was weak transmission between humans, but the virus became much less virulent.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)I'm sure the people whose job it is to panic soonest are on the case. We will know soon enough what the human-to-human transmission factor is. What is worrisome is mutation once it is known humans get infected bu a strain.
Javaman
(62,517 posts)
In_The_Wind
(72,300 posts)
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Chinas million chicken filthy factory farms, slaughter plants must not be a healthy place to work or breath. Tysons there ask them for a statement.
And what about not for humans to eat- pet treats? humans touch those products does the over processing bleach out any virus?
