China Bird Flu Outbreak May Stem From Numerous Sources

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-09/china-bird-flu-outbreak-may-stem-from-numerous-sources.html


Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images
A Centers for Disease Control (CDC) staff member checks a passenger's temperature at the entrance of Sungshan Airport in Taipei on April 4, 2013.

China’s avian flu outbreak that has killed nine people since March is being driven by at least two closely related viruses, a situation that may make it more difficult to contain in humans and birds, researchers said.

The H7N9 flu has shown signs of genetic diversity since the first three patients were diagnosed, said Richard Webby, director of a World Health Organization collaborating center for the virus at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. It already appears more infectious than the H5N1 strain of bird flu that has been circulating since 2003, infecting 600 people and killing 60 percent of them, he said.

Scientists from around the world are working together to understand the virus because of the potential devastation caused by novel infections. The pandemics of the past century include the 1918 Spanish flu that killed as many as 50 million people and the 2003 SARS outbreak that killed 774.

“This virus might be getting more infectious to humans,” Webby said in a telephone interview. “If this is let spread from where it is now, it will evolve further. That’s what viruses do. If it isn’t contained now, that will almost certainly happen.”

[Robb]

1. Perhaps someone more familiar with China can answer

The report notes 11 people detained for "spreading rumors" about the virus; did that take place during the earlier outbreak?