HEALTH H7N9 bird flu found to spread through the air

Just as I thought it is a weak virus at this stage of the game. The next two years will be a hell.


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H7N9 bird flu found to spread through the air

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1244536/h7n9-bird-flu-found-spread-through-air

Jeanette Wang May 24, 2013

The H7N9 bird flu virus can be transmitted not only through close contact but by airborne exposure, a team at the University of Hong Kong found after extensive laboratory experiments.

Though the virus appears to have been brought under control recently, the researchers urged the Hong Kong authorities to maintain strict surveillance, which should include not only poultry but humans and pigs.

"We also found that the virus can infect pigs, which was not previously known," said Dr Maria Zhu Huachen, a research assistant professor at HKU's School of Public Health.

There have been 131 confirmed human infections, with 36 deaths, the World Health Organisation said. All but one of the cases was on the mainland. The virus appears to have been brought under control largely due to restrictions at bird markets and there have been no new confirmed cases since May 8.

But Zhu said that although there was no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission, their study provided evidence that H7N9 was infectious and transmissible in mammals.

In the study, to be published today in the journal Science, ferrets were used to evaluate the infectivity of H7N9. It was found the virus could spread through the air, from one cage to another, albeit less efficiently.

Inoculated ferrets were infected before the appearance of most clinical symptoms. This means there may be more cases than have been detected or reported.

Dr Maria Zhu Huachen, HKU's School of Public Health
"People may be transmitting the virus before they even know that they've got it," Zhu said.

Additional tests using pigs, a major host of influenza viruses, showed that they could also get infected with H7N9. Zhu warned that H7N9 may combine with pig viruses to generate new variants.

On a more positive note, it was found that the virus is relatively mild.

"Most of the fatal H7N9 cases had underlying medical conditions, so there are probably some other factors that contribute to this kind of fatality," Zhu said.

To avoid H7N9 becoming endemic in poultry populations, which would create a greater opportunity for human transmission, the researchers suggested a rethink on how live poultry markets are managed.

Zhu believed the Hong Kong government had "done a very good job" in this area and should continue to do so. The government implemented a surveillance programme on local and imported poultry in 1998. It includes monitoring the live poultry supply chain, pet shops, parks and the wild bird environment.

She said the government had collaborated with HKU on intensive surveillance of both birds and pigs. Zhu added that people who regularly had close contact with live poultry or pigs should take precautions, have routine body checks and report their case immediately if they feel unwell.

If it's mild, why does it cause such severe illness? Are they using the world "mild" in a different way than I understand?

90% of those that have died from it have been old and sick. I know only of one 18 year old man that was supposed to be healthy that died from it. Once this spread into the Western World anyone who is out of condition will be dead.

Next year it will be like the Spanish Flu and kill healthy people in no time flat.

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The Spanish Flu

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/natural-disasters/4219884

hospital during 1918 flu pandemic
July 31, 2007 3:07 AM Text Size: A . A . A
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Initially called "the three day fever," it started like any flu, with a cough and a headache, followed by intense chills and a fever that could quickly hit 104 degrees F. It could take a month before survivors felt completely well, and after they emerged from an energy-sapped stupor many said it felt as though they'd been aggressively hit with a club. But for those 650,000 Americans who actually died from the Spanish flu in 1918, the suffering was much worse.

Deep brown spots would appear on a victim's cheeks and a thick, bloody fluid would begin to overwhelm his lungs. Starting at the ears, their faces would gradually turn blue as circulating blood could not get oxygenated. Soon, victims would start to drown in their own fluid -- often coughing up a pinkish froth as they fought to inhale. "It is only a matter of a few hours then until death comes, and it is simply a struggle for air until they suffocate," an army doctor, based outside of Boston at Camp Devens, wrote to a colleague in 1918. "It is horrible."

The influenza pandemic of 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people around the world -- 34 million more than died from the First World War in progress alongside it. Unlike the seasonal flu, a pandemic flu is one for which there is little or no human immunity. And instead of targeting the weak or old, the 1918 flu was particularly deadly among the young and healthy. According to molecular pathologist Jeffrey Taubenberger, almost half of all flu deaths that year were among 20- to 40-year-olds. Their immune systems essentially overreacted, destroying their lungs in an attempt to get to the virus.

Though dubbed the Spanish flu, after millions of early deaths in Spain, the geographic origin of the disease remains unknown. Some hypothesize that it may have been circulating around the world for a few years before developing into a pandemic in 1918. The first confirmed outbreak in the United States, if not the world, was at an army base in northeastern Kansas on March 11, 1918. Just hours after the first soldier reported sick, dozens more began pouring into the infirmary. By the end of the day, hundreds of soldiers had fallen ill. Within a week 500 had come down with the fever.

The flu quickly spread across the country, where 2 million troops were mobilizing for the war in Europe. The soldiers carried the flu with them when they shipped out, introducing the virus to France, England, Germany and Spain. "King George's Grand Fleet could not even put to sea for three weeks in May, with 10,313 men sick," reports Gina Kolata in her book Flu. The virus jumped to China, India, Japan and the rest of Asia. By summer it seemed to have played itself out.

Then, in late August, the flu re-emerged in Boston. This time it was even more deadly. Some people reportedly dropped dead on the street; others managed to hold on for days. By the first week of September, an average of 100 people died every day at Camp Devens. "We have lost an outrageous number of Nurses and Drs., and the little town of Ayer is a sight," wrote one of the camp's doctors. "It takes special trains to carry away the dead. For several days there were no coffins and the bodies piled up something fierce; we used to go down to the morgue (which is just back of my ward) and look at the boys laid out in long rows. It beats any sight they ever had in France after a battle."

By the end of September, 50,000 people in Massachusetts had been infected with the flu. In Philadelphia, 635 people became ill after a large public gathering to raise money for the war. The city tried to staunch the spread by ordering all churches, schools and theaters closed, but by the first week of October, 289 people had died in a single day. In New York, the death tally for one day was 851. San Francisco reported cases, as did Chicago, where there were so many deaths that the city banned funerals

"The morgues were packed almost to the ceiling with bodies stacked one on top of another. The morticians worked day and night," wrote Navy nurse Josie Brown, who was stationed at Great Lakes Naval Station near Chicago. "You could never turn around without seeing a big red truck loaded with caskets for the train station so bodies could be sent home. We didn't have the time to treat them. We didn't take temperatures; we didn't even have time to take blood pressure. We would give them a little hot whisky toddy; that's about all we had time to do. They would have terrific nosebleeds with it. Sometimes the blood would just shoot across the room. You had to get out of the way or someone's nose would bleed all over you."

No place was immune to the disease, though government officials tried their best to protect residents. When ministers in Seattle complained that their churches were shuttered, the mayor retorted, "Religion that won't keep for two weeks, is not worth having." In Ogden, Utah, officials sealed off the town -- no one could go in or out without a doctor's note. In Alaska, the governor closed the ports and posted U.S. marshals to guard them. Even that didn't work: In Nome, just south of the Arctic Circle, 176 of 300 Alaska Natives died.

With 195,000 fatalities from the flu, October 1918 became the deadliest month in U.S. history. But the horror continued through November, when at least 115,000 people in California were stricken ill. Stores canceled holiday sales to keep crowds down, and shoppers were encouraged to phone in their orders. When citizens did go out, many cities required that they wear masks in public. "Obey the laws, and wear the gauze, protect your jaws, from septic paws," warned one jingle. At least one minor league baseball game was played under these circumstances. "It is a surreal image," writes Kolata of a photograph taken at the game. "The pitcher, the batter, every player and every member of the crowd are wearing gauze masks."

By the end of 1918, the flu had killed 57,000 American soldiers -- 4000 more than those killed in combat. But the world war dominated the news, even as Woodrow Wilson reportedly contracted the flu while negotiating the Versailles treaty in Paris. Twenty-five percent of all Americans contracted the virus, before the pandemic was over. The Spanish flu's reach was so complete that its death toll dropped the average life expectancy in the United States by 12 years.

The Aftermath
For more than 80 years after the flu disappeared, epidemiologists still had little understanding of what made the 1918 virus so devastating. Then, in October 2005, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology announced that they had isolated, decoded and replicated the entire sequence of the 1918 flu virus now known as H1N1. It was a monumental achievement. Working with tissue samples of flu victims from autopsy archives, and from the infected lung tissue of an Alaskan woman whose body had been preserved in Arctic permafrost, the researchers essentially recreated an extinct virus -- a scientific first.

H1N1, they discovered, arose from an avian strain. A virus that normally affects only birds had developed the ability to jump to humans. Further research revealed why the flu was able to spread so rapidly -- and be so deadly. The structure of the virus's protein coat enabled it to bond efficiently with receptors on human cells and to infect cells deep within the lungs. The enzymes that drive the virus's replication also worked with unusual swiftness.

Since 1918 there have been two other pandemic flus to strike the United States. The Asian flu of 1957 to 1958 killed 70,000 Americans, and 34,000 Americans were killed by the Hong Kong flu of 1968 to 1969. Today, public health officials are concerned about H5N1, which claimed its first fatality 10 years ago. It has since killed nearly 200 people. Like the Spanish flu, H5N1 is an avian flu; however, H5N1 does not yet appear to have evolved the Spanish flu's ability to spread from person to person.

Though the CDC monitors active flu strains in order to develop vaccines for the peak flu season, in many ways the public health response to the pandemic flu of 1918 began in earnest as news of H5N1 spread. In May of 2006, the White House released a 233-page implementation plan for a national strategy for pandemic influenza. The report suggests 30 percent of the population could be infected and 2 million people could die in the United States if a pandemic flu strain emerged in this country today.

The plan calls for $1 billion to be spent on improving the cumbersome vaccine process. Making a flu vaccine is a 50-year-old technology that relies on growing a specific strain in chicken eggs; 900 million eggs are required to create 300 million doses, and the process takes nine months. With the influx of federal money, scientists and pharmaceutical companies are working toward developing cell cultures to grow seed viruses. If successful, the technique could be deployed faster, provide larger quantities and allow researchers to rapidly update vaccines as a virus mutates.

Read more: Spanish Flu Pandemic - 1918 - History - Interviews - Aftermath - Worst Disasters - Popular Mechanics
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H7N9 bird flu spreads much like ordinary flu
http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/23/18449728-h7n9-bird-flu-spreads-much-like-ordinary-flu
Maggie Fox

The H7N9 bird flu can spread from one mammal to another – meaning it could also spread person to person, an international team of researchers reported Thursday.

Researchers haven’t been exactly sure how H7N9 is spreading. They know it can infect people – it’s infected more than 130 people and killed more than 30 of them – but they have suspected most of the victims had some sort of contact with infected poultry.

The research team, led by Yi Guan of the University of Hong Kong, tried infecting ferrets – the animals closest to humans when it comes to catching flu.

The animals could infect one another by direct contact in cages. And one ferret kept in a separate cage was infected as well, they report in this week’s issue of the journal Science.

“Under appropriate conditions human-to-human transmission of the H7N9 virus may be possible,” they wrote.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says he is not too worried by the findings. “We already know you can infect mammals,” said Fauci, who was not involved in the research.

“That is what influenza does. We know that. You are talking about a handful of ferrets. You can’t make major extrapolations.”

Officials are keeping a close eye on H7N9 because it has the potential to cause a human pandemic. So far, it doesn’t seem to infect people easily and people who are infected do not seem to spread it to others much, if at all. But influenza viruses change quickly and unpredictably and if one starts passing easily from one person to another, it could spread.

The experiment also showed that the ferrets could pass the infection before they started showing symptoms. Human flu does this too – that’s why it spreads so quickly and easily every year, because people are out and about, touching others, before they know they are sick.

“If this virus acquires the ability to efficiently transmit from human-to-human, extensive spread of this virus may be inevitable, as quarantine measures will lag behind its spread,” the researchers wrote in Science.

“Assuming that poultry is the source of the H7N9 virus, continued prevalence of this virus could lead to it becoming endemic in poultry as has occurred with the Asian highly pathogenic H5N1 and H9N2 virus lineages," they added. Endemic viruses are established and cause constant outbreaks.

"If so, the opportunities for the H7N9 virus to evolve to acquire human-to-human transmissibility, or to be introduced to pigs, would greatly increase. To prevent this happening, it may be advisable to reconsider the management of live poultry markets, especially in the urban areas.”

New H7N9 infections appear to have trailed off in China. World Health Organization officials say it might be because officials are closing poultry markets and cleaning them. Or it could be because it’s spring and influenza tends to die down in the spring.

Marc-Alain Widdowson of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the virus doesn’t make poultry sick, so it could spread quietly and easily.

“One thing that we are particularly worried about is there is a tremendous amount of poultry that goes from China into Vietnam,” said Widdowson, who visited China with a CDC team to investigate the outbreak.

“One of the things we are looking at is ramping up surveillance in bird markers and in the population.”

People who buy an infected chicken won’t know, because H7N9 doesn’t make the birds sick they way H5N1 does, Widdowson says. “It worries me substantially,” he said.

“There’s absolutely no doubt it has got some very concerning mutations which suggest it may be adapting to human receptors. These make it closer to what we are all fearing, which is a virus that can spread sustainably humans to human and cause severe disease.”

H7N9 bird flu can pass between mammals, researchers find

By Eryn Brown
May 23, 2013, 2:53 p.m.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science...search-ferrets-webby-20130523,0,1212299.story

Scientists are gaining a better understanding of the H7N9 bird flu that has sickened more than 130 people -- and killed more than 30 -- in China and Taiwan since February.

The latest research into the virus, which before this year had never been detected in humans, was published Thursday (subscription required for full text) in the online edition of the journal Science.

Working with ferrets, an animal that is often studied to gain insight into flu transmissibility in people, scientists in China, Canada and the U.S. found that H7N9 could spread from one ferret to another -- suggesting that it could also pass between humans. "Under appropriate conditions human-to-human transmission of the H7N9 virus may be possible," the co-authors wrote.

But H7N9 only spread efficiently when the ferrets were placed in the same cage and came into direct contact. The virus did not transmit easily between animals in adjacent cages, who couldn't touch but could breathe in the droplets from each others' sneezes and coughs.

"We think for a virus to take off in humans, it has to be efficient at both" forms of transmission, said Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. and a coauthor of the paper. But, he added, the H7N9 virus is likely to mutate over time, and could become more transmissible in humans as time goes by.

Webby said that the team's data reflected the epidemiology on the ground: So far, public health officials believe most cases have occurred in people who have had close contact with poultry, and do not think H7N9 spreads easily between humans. But even though the findings "may seem a little 'duh,' " Webby said, they help scientists answer some of the more subtle questions surrounding H7N9 transmissibility in people.

When people get sick with H7N9, health workers don't know how much of their susceptibility is influenced by underlying heath conditions, cross-reactive immunity, or other external factors. By performing an experiment in ferrets, Webby said, researchers can control for such variables and get a more clear picture of the virus' transmissibility.

The team also performed their experiment in pigs, in an effort to see what role the animals might play in harboring the virus in the wild. H7N9 did not transmit efficiently in the pigs, suggesting that they "probably are not big players in the epidemiology of the disease at the moment," Webby said.

According to the World Health Organization's latest update on human infections with H7N9, there were no new lab-confirmed cases of H7N9 in humans between May 8 and May 17. Webby said that cases of the illness did seem to be "tailing off," perhaps because live poultry markets have been shut down in the region, or perhaps because it's almost summer.

In the future, the coauthors of the Science paper wrote, as markets reopen, authorities in areas where the virus has taken hold may want to adjust the way they manage poultry markets to prevent further spread of the virus.

A letter published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine also focused on on the importance of poultry markets in the spread of H7N9 among humans. That journal also published new H7N9 research this week, which updated reports of the clinical characteristics of 111 cases of the illness.H7N9 bird flu can pass between mammals, researchers find

By Eryn Brown
May 23, 2013, 2:53 p.m.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science...search-ferrets-webby-20130523,0,1212299.story

Scientists are gaining a better understanding of the H7N9 bird flu that has sickened more than 130 people -- and killed more than 30 -- in China and Taiwan since February.

The latest research into the virus, which before this year had never been detected in humans, was published Thursday (subscription required for full text) in the online edition of the journal Science.

Working with ferrets, an animal that is often studied to gain insight into flu transmissibility in people, scientists in China, Canada and the U.S. found that H7N9 could spread from one ferret to another -- suggesting that it could also pass between humans. "Under appropriate conditions human-to-human transmission of the H7N9 virus may be possible," the co-authors wrote.

But H7N9 only spread efficiently when the ferrets were placed in the same cage and came into direct contact. The virus did not transmit easily between animals in adjacent cages, who couldn't touch but could breathe in the droplets from each others' sneezes and coughs.

"We think for a virus to take off in humans, it has to be efficient at both" forms of transmission, said Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. and a coauthor of the paper. But, he added, the H7N9 virus is likely to mutate over time, and could become more transmissible in humans as time goes by.

Webby said that the team's data reflected the epidemiology on the ground: So far, public health officials believe most cases have occurred in people who have had close contact with poultry, and do not think H7N9 spreads easily between humans. But even though the findings "may seem a little 'duh,' " Webby said, they help scientists answer some of the more subtle questions surrounding H7N9 transmissibility in people.

When people get sick with H7N9, health workers don't know how much of their susceptibility is influenced by underlying heath conditions, cross-reactive immunity, or other external factors. By performing an experiment in ferrets, Webby said, researchers can control for such variables and get a more clear picture of the virus' transmissibility.

The team also performed their experiment in pigs, in an effort to see what role the animals might play in harboring the virus in the wild. H7N9 did not transmit efficiently in the pigs, suggesting that they "probably are not big players in the epidemiology of the disease at the moment," Webby said.

According to the World Health Organization's latest update on human infections with H7N9, there were no new lab-confirmed cases of H7N9 in humans between May 8 and May 17. Webby said that cases of the illness did seem to be "tailing off," perhaps because live poultry markets have been shut down in the region, or perhaps because it's almost summer.

In the future, the coauthors of the Science paper wrote, as markets reopen, authorities in areas where the virus has taken hold may want to adjust the way they manage poultry markets to prevent further spread of the virus.

A letter published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine also focused on on the importance of poultry markets in the spread of H7N9 among humans. That journal also published new H7N9 research this week, which updated reports of the clinical characteristics of 111 cases of the illness.

A chinese link with English subs saying that people need to be careful of the h7n9, that the person reporting cannot give details, but his hands were shaking., -then his account was deleted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk_oFqzrBiY

Additional vid saying that china is detaining bloggers who report on the h7n9, also telling family their loved ones dying of pneumonia when it is actually the flu.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhR7JbX3v8s

And another vid saying there are new cases. More Cases of H7N9 Reported in Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Fujian Provinces

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mk33bj0lJc

Well I am hearing nothing about it where I work and live. The live chicken sellers have reopened and seem to be doing good business. I bought two chickens yesterday. I cook chicken at least once a week.

What ever is going to happen will happen when the colder weather hits.


However the above posts give a good idea I think of the risks involved and I would expect that it is all over the world by now.


When you go in here for a drip for flu there are no tests done normally. It is just assumed that you have whatever flu virus is going around. The cost and time makes testing impractical.

Yeah, its youtube and in another language at that , so very hard to screen lol. When the vids are in english, you can usually tell if someone is sketchy lol. Ill keep putting up the chinese forbidden news ones though because they were right in the past.

Hopefully they are wrong about the spread in those three provinces. X fingers. Hope you're doing well CC

The flu is MUTATING, gang. It is evolving on a case by case basis with each new infection. It started in the dead pigs in the Shanghai river. It spread to humans. It spread to birds. It gradually improving its ability to spread human to human using the airborne vector. THE FLU VIRUS CAN STAY SUSPENDED IN THE AIR FOR UP TO 24 HOURS!!!!!

It may be slowing down, or the true numbers are being suppressed, but it is still out there. China's government is heavily involved in a censorship effort to keep the true extent from being reported. The sheeple will ignore things until H79 EXPLODES in the fall.

Well it has to badder than what is let on for Russia to give out such advise.

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: Russia: "Enhanced controls" put in place on Chinese border due to H7N9 - urges only essential travel to China
machine translation

Press release

On the situation on the diseases, avian influenza virus H 7 N 9

The Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare reports that according to WHO data as of May 22, 2013 the number of laboratory-confirmed cases of human infection with avian influenza A (H7N9) in the People's Republic of China (PRC) is 131, 36 of them - have been fatal.

The incidence recorded in the provinces of Zhejiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Anhui, Henan, Fujian, Shandong, Hunan, Taiwan and Beijing.

According to available information, the experts of China conducted a set of necessary measures to stabilize the situation, which allowed to remove the state of emergency in two provinces - Shanghai and Chzhedzyan.

CPS has continued to implement measures to prevent the importation of infection in the country, strengthening disease surveillance and circulation of influenza virus and SARS.

With the participation of laboratories hygiene and epidemiology centers of the Siberian and Far Eastern federal districts, research organizations (SRO) Epidemiology study material of wild birds.

In the SSC "Vector", the application analyzes the strain of the virus A (H7N9), obtained in the framework of cooperation by the WHO. Epidemiology Research Department prepared a test system to indicate the pathogen and confirmed their willingness to work.

WHO is currently assessing the situation as a serious impact on health, which has no international distribution and will not interfere with international travel or trade. At the same time, international experts have pointed out that the mechanism of transmission is not fully understood. Therefore, despite some stabilization of the situation, it is necessary to keep Cautions and avoid the risk of infection while on disadvantaged areas.

CPS recommends that, whenever possible, to refrain from trips to China, unless they are caused by circumstances of extreme urgency.

The situation is under control of the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare.

http://tinyurl.com/oyqlqs2

CC since I will likely never get there, could you post some pics?
Then next year, post some of the same shots showing the empty streets...

IT’S AIRBORNE: Human Transmission of Deadly H7N9 Virus Now Confirmed
Mac Slavo
May 23rd, 2013
SHTFplan.com




h7n9In April of this year researches studying the H7N9 bird flu virus in China advised global governments to get prepared for the worst case scenario. According to the World Health Organization, H7N9 is one the most lethal influenza strains ever identified because it mutates eight times faster than a normal flu virus, and according to official records, has a death-to-infection ratio of about 25%.

It was initially believed that the virus could only be transmitted to humans who have had direct contact with poultry. After 36 H7N9 deaths and 131 of infections officially reported since the virus was first identified, the worst case scenario that many feared may now be on the horizon.

The Sun China Morning Post is reporting that researches have confirmed that, not only can the virus be transmitted from one human to another, but it has gone airborne.

The H7N9 bird flu virus can be transmitted not only through close contact but by airborne exposure, a team at the University of Hong Kong found after extensive laboratory experiments.

Though the virus appears to have been brought under control recently, the researchers urged the Hong Kong authorities to maintain strict surveillance, which should include not only poultry but humans and pigs.

…

In the study, to be published today in the journal Science, ferrets were used to evaluate the infectivity of H7N9. It was found the virus could spread through the air, from one cage to another, albeit less efficiently.

Inoculated ferrets were infected before the appearance of most clinical symptoms. This means there may be more cases than have been detected or reported.

“People may be transmitting the virus before they even know that they’ve got it,” Zhu said.

SCMP via Zero Hedge

It’s important to note that the Chinese government has never been very straight forward about statistics, especially if they involve negative perceptions of their country, so in all likelihood the H7N9 virus has infected countless others.

Though it’s been called one of the most lethal flu viruses in history by WHO, Chinese scientists have downplayed the threat by claiming the effects are “mild,” and the U.S. government has up until now made no decision on whether to move forward with a vaccine for this particular strain. Earlier reports indicate that the virus is resistant to Tamiflu, a drug commonly used to treat most flu symptoms.

H7N9 is reportedly now under control in China, but we know for a fact that the virus jumped to Taiwan in April, and it may have spread elsewhere. Given that research shows the virus can spread through the air before symptoms appear, it’s certainly possibly that an outbreak is in its preliminary phase right now.

Curiously, the United Nations reports that the virus has already cost the global economy some $6.5 billion in losses. Those are massive numbers given that only 131 official cases have been reported.

We’ll know soon enough if the Chinese government has controlled the outbreak among its one billion population, and if it’s taken hold in other countries. If it’s airborne, the contagion will spread like any common cold or flu.

Pandemics have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people throughout history, and once they start they are very hard to control. With H7N9 having a mutation rate that is eight times faster than other flu viruses, it could very well become even deadlier than it is now. Moreover, it could become even more contagious over time.

The only thing we can do at this point is to wait for news as it becomes available and take preemptive steps to prepare for the possibility of a widespread outbreak.

http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-ne...n-of-deadly-h7n9-virus-now-confirmed_05232013

CSIRO develops bird flu test kits
http://www.theage.com.au/national/health/csiro-develops-bird-flu-test-kits-20130526-2n5fq.html
May 27, 2013

Australian scientists have played a vital role in developing the diagnostic test for the latest deadly strain of bird flu, and their work is now being exported.

With much of south-east Asia on alert for the H7N9 virus that has so far killed 32 people, CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong is preparing test kits containing the deactivated virus for export to almost a dozen countries.

Working with international laboratories, CSIRO scientists developed the blood test which can confirm the presence of the H7N9 bird flu strain in ducks or poultry.

Australian Animal Health Laboratory director Kurt Zuelke said the test was developed using a live sample of the virus, which was sent from China last month. After infecting chickens with the virus to harvest more samples from the infected blood, scientists then irradiated the virus to kill it before it was used as an ingredient in the test.

The diagnostic kits have already gone to laboratories in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Last week kits were sent to Malaysia, the Philippines and Bangladesh and this week to Nepal and Bhutan. Each kit contains about 8000 tests.

''If or when this new virus starts to circulate beyond China, we have a network across south-east Asia that can detect it as part of their routine surveillance activities,'' Dr Zuelke said. ''The key rationale is to establish an early surveillance network across south-east Asia so that if the virus starts to move, we can respond quickly.''

The H7N9 influenza strain has only been reported in China and Taiwan. It has not yet proved transferable from human to human.

The World Health Organisation says the H7N9 influenza virus has killed 32 people since February. Another 131 cases have been reported, mostly in eastern China.

Scientists in China sequenced the virus' gene this year, making the information available internationally. ''These viruses don't recognise boundaries very well, so it has to be an international effort.''

Dr Zuelke said Australia benefited not just by gaining experience and establishing networks in the region; such projects were also important for the country's biosecurity. ''Influenza is actually quite a serious disease and the virus can change and evolve with time.''

Drug-resistant H7N9 strains to change treatment: researcher

2013/05/26 17:46:26
http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aall/201305260009.aspx

Taipei, May 26 (CNA) The discovery that some H7N9 bird flu virus strains have developed drug resistance will affect the strategies for dealing with future cases, a researcher said Saturday.

Some H7N9 strains found in a Taiwanese businessmen who became the first and only confirmed case outside China in late April after returning from there, were resistant to Tamiflu, a drug used to prevent and treat flu, said Shih Shin-ru, director of Chang Gung University's Research Center for Emerging Viral Infections.

Since there have also been H7N9 virus strains with the same drug-resistant gene found in a case in Shanghai, Shih said, Lee was probably exposed to large amounts of the virus in China.

Speaking at a seminar in Taipei on the H7N9 bird flu that was organized by National Taiwan University's (NTU's) College of Public Health, Shih said that laboratories can develop tests for drug-resistant strains of the virus based on this finding.

Once such drug-resistant strains are found in a patient, the doctors can then quickly change the drugs they use for treatment, she added.

The Taiwanese businessman, identified only by his family name Lee, returned to Taiwan April 9 after a trip to China's Jiangsu Province, one of the country's H7N9 bird flu-affected areas. He fell ill with flu-like symptoms April 12 but did not go to see a doctor until April 16.

Lee was transferred to NTU Hospital April 20 and confirmed to have been infected with the new avian flu virus April 24. He was discharged from the hospital May 24.

The virus has so far infected at least 130 people in China, killing 36 of them, but no new confirmed cases have been reported since May 8, according to the latest data on the official website of the World Health Organization.

(By Chen Ching-fang and Kay Liu)