An emerging bird flu that is mysterious and deadly is haunting China. With four fresh H7N9 cases reported in Jiangsu Province and no indication as to how three Chinese adults caught the little-noted avian flu virus that killed two of them
in March, the global medical community is hoping the new flu will calm
down until China’s health system can determine how it spread.
“I can tell you this thing is real and definitely has the markings of
being a killer,” says Jason Tetro, coordinator of the Emerging
Pathogens Research Centre in Ottawa, which on Monday examined gene
sequences from three of China’s H7N9 cases.
“I don’t wish to cause panic,” Tetro said in an interview, noting that if the subtype were proven to have emerged from a small farm, he wouldn’t be much alarmed. Infecting a big poultry reservoir, on the other hand, might well enable H7N9 to access Asia’s wild bird population. The upstart subtype could then become as menacing as H5N1, which since 2005 has officially taken 371 lives in 622 cases, mostly in China, Southeast Asia and Egypt, according to the World Health Organization. The additional Chinese cases have convinced Tetro that “close contact with birds” has been involved. “And I think the CAFOs [industrial chicken farms] have definitely contributed to the evolution of this virus,” he says.
Continued: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/04/02/new-bird-flu-strain-creates-fear-and-surveillance/
“I don’t wish to cause panic,” Tetro said in an interview, noting that if the subtype were proven to have emerged from a small farm, he wouldn’t be much alarmed. Infecting a big poultry reservoir, on the other hand, might well enable H7N9 to access Asia’s wild bird population. The upstart subtype could then become as menacing as H5N1, which since 2005 has officially taken 371 lives in 622 cases, mostly in China, Southeast Asia and Egypt, according to the World Health Organization. The additional Chinese cases have convinced Tetro that “close contact with birds” has been involved. “And I think the CAFOs [industrial chicken farms] have definitely contributed to the evolution of this virus,” he says.
Continued: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/04/02/new-bird-flu-strain-creates-fear-and-surveillance/
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