China reports new case of H7N9 bird flu

BEIJING - China has confirmed a new human case of the deadly H7N9 strain of bird flu, the country's first report of an infection since August, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

A 35-year-old man in Shaoxing in China's eastern province of Zhejiang has been hospitalised with the virus and is in critical condition, WHO said.

Zhejiang has recorded the highest number of H7N9 infections anywhere in China.

Some 45 people have died from H7N9 flu, which was unknown in humans until the first cases were detected in people early this year.

The Geneva-based WHO said that to date, it had been informed of a total 136 laboratory-confirmed human cases of H7N9 infection, including the 45 deaths.

Currently, three patients are hospitalized and 88 have been discharged, it said in a statement, adding that there was no evidence so far of sustainable human-to-human transmission.

While there has been only a handful of H7N9 infections during the summer months after a surge in April, flu experts warn that the threat posed by the virus has not passed.

The first scientific analysis of probable transfer of the new flu strain between humans, published in the British Medical Journal in August, gave the strongest proof yet that it can jump between people and so potentially cause a human pandemic.

Another study published in August identified several other H7 flu viruses circulating in birds that "may pose threats beyond the current outbreak".

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

China bird flu death toll rises to 22

BEIJING - An elderly man in eastern China died of bird flu on Tuesday, bringing the death toll from a strain that recently emerged in humans to 22, a provincial health agency reported.

The 86-year-old man died after having been diagnosed with the H7N9 virus on April 17, the Zhejiang Health Bureau said on its website.

Two others in Zhejiang have been diagnosed with the disease, including an 84-year-old man and a 62-year-old man, both of Hangzhou who fell ill on April 15, the health bureau said.

In neighboring Anhui province, another case was diagnosed on Tuesday, a 91-year-old man, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.

The man became sick on April 14, Xinhua said.

So far 108 people have contracted the disease since the first deaths were reported in China last month. Authorities say many of those who became sick worked with poultry.

Investigators have yet to determine human-to-human transmission of the virus.

"Investigations into the possible sources of infection and reservoirs of the virus are ongoing," the World Health Organization said on Monday. "Until the source of infection has been identified, it is expected that there will be further cases of human infection with the virus in China."

The WHO's China representative, Michael O'Leary, issued data on Friday showing that half of the patients analysed had no known contact with poultry, but he said it appeared human-to-human transmission was rare.

Some bird samples have tested positive and China has culled thousands of birds and shut down some live poultry markets.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

WHO team probes bird flu in Shanghai

SHANGHAI - A World Health Organisation team was due Monday to wrap up a trip to Shanghai, centre of China's bird flu outbreak which has killed 20 people, as part of an investigation into how the virus is spreading.

Since announcing on March 31 that H7N9 had been found in humans for the first time, China had confirmed a total of 102 cases in Shanghai and the capital Beijing as well as four provinces, the health ministry said Sunday.

"There has been no discovery of evidence of human-to-human transmission," the ministry said in a statement.

Experts fear the prospect of such a virus mutating into a form easily transmissible between humans, which would then have the potential to trigger a pandemic.

Chinese health officials have acknowledged so-called "family clusters", or members of a single family becoming infected, though they have so far declined to call this human-to-human transmission.

Chinese health officials and WHO representatives were to hold a news conference on Monday after the three-day visit by the UN health agency, the Shanghai government said.

The WHO representative in China, Michael O'Leary, said Friday that the purpose of the 15-member team's week-long visit to China was to study whether H7N9 was spreading among humans.

"The primary focus of the investigation is to determine whether this is in fact spreading at a lower level among humans. But there is no evidence for that so far except in these very rare instances," O'Leary said.

Health experts draw a difference between "sustained" human-to-human transmission and cases in which family members or medical personnel caring for the ill become infected.

The son of a man who was Shanghai's first case of H7N9 was confirmed to have the virus after an initial test ruled it out, Chinese officials said last week.

The Shanghai government also said the husband of a woman confirmed with the virus had become sick with H7N9, but added there was not enough evidence to verify transmission between them.

"Family clusters in general do not change our understanding of the characteristics of the disease," said Feng Zijian, an official of China's disease control centre.

"It is still passed from poultry to people and there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission," he said last Wednesday.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

China closes poultry markets amid bird flu

16 fall ill from bird flu in China

SHANGHAI - Chinese officials have found traces of the new bird flu virus in more areas in Shanghai and in the nearby city of Hangzhou, news reports said on Saturday, as authorities slaughtered birds to stop the spread of the virus that has killed six people.

State-run Xinhua news agency said authorities planned to cull birds at the two live poultry markets in Shanghai and another in Hangzhou after samples of the H7N9 virus were detected in birds at all three sites.

Over 20,000 birds have been culled in the Huhuai market, where traces of the virus were found earlier this week.

Officials in Shanghai, China's financial hub, ordered all live poultry markets in the city closed on Saturday, leaving the food stalls empty and signs reading "The market is closed until further notice".

The new strain of bird flu has infected 16 people in China, all in the east of the country. Six people have died, and the outbreak has spread concern overseas and sparked a sell-off in airline shares in Europe and Hong Kong.

There were no signs of panic in Shanghai, where four of the six deaths have taken place, and people said they were not yet worried. But the culling, which has been widely publicised, did underline for some how close to home the issue had become.

"Now it's just downstairs," said Liu Leting, a user of Weibo, China's version of Twitter which has over 500 million users.

"Suddenly I discover that I'm living in an epidemic zone!"

In one middle price-range restaurant in a the city, a waitress said that the restaurant planned to stop serving chicken dishes because of the outbreak.

"After we sell out the chicken in stock, we will not buy new chicken and will stop serving chicken dishes for the time being," said the waitress, who declined to be named.

While the strain does not appear to be transmitted from human to human, authorities in mainland China and Hong Kong said they were taking extra precautions.

"I support shutting down poultry markets. If the poultry markets stayed open, the virus would continue to spread," Shanghai resident Zhao Juying told Reuters.

Hong Kong's government said it is intensifying surveillance of travelers and poultry coming into the city.

China and Hong Kong were badly hit by the 2002-2003 epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that started in China and killed about one-tenth of the 8,000 it infected worldwide.

source: abs-cbnnews.com