Unusual Strain of Bird Flu, H7N9 Downs Three Men in China

Initial reports from Eastern China said there were seven people affected with the new strain of avian flu virus, tagged as H7N9. The report also said that two of the infected people in Shanghai have already succumbed to the virus. The latest news report from Xinhua, the state-run media outfit in China said that another man from Zhejiang had died from the new virus strain on Wednesday.

The deaths have alarmed the World Health Organization because the virus was not known to spread in humans. However, it had been reported that there had been numerous infections of humans in the past years although there were no deaths that resulted from the infections before. With these new developments, authorities fear that another coronavirus outbreak might be imminent.

Not a threat to humans before

Chinese health authorities say they are having a difficult time tracking the past outbreaks of avian flu since the virus can infect birds without obvious symptoms being seen. They have already published the DNA sequence of the H7N9 virus. It had been noted that the difference between the H7N9 and other avian flu viruses could suggest that it had already adapted to humans. However, only one of the infected individuals had contact with poultry. The health authorities have also checked some of the pig carcasses that were hauled from a river to see if their death was related to the virus. The virus is not present in the hogs they have tested. It was reported last week that more than 11,000 hogs were floating in the Huangpu River, and several thousands were also pulled out from the rivers in the province of Zhejiang where the third death occurred. Twenty-two per cent of the water in Shanghai is supplied by the Huangpu River, the largest river in the city.

Close monitoring

With reports of human infection with the H7N9 virus slowly trickling in, Chinese health authorities are keeping a close watch on reports of pneumonia cases whose cause are unknown. They have already set up a team of experts to assess the severity and risk brought by this new avian flu virus strain.

Authorities are cognizant of the fact that there could already be a widespread outbreak among the avian species and that identifying the source is of high importance. The WHO is also in close contact with the national authorities in China.

Vaccines

So far there are only a few cases of H7N9 infection detected that research done on it is still minimal. As such, there are no known vaccines available for this strain of avian flu. However, Hong Kong University School of Public Health professor, Malik Peiris said that the existing drugs against flu like Tamiflu might work. He also said that the WHO had already identified the virus family of H7, had already identified that it could be a threat and had set aside vaccines that would work. He also added that other H7 virus family strains caused previous avian flu outbreaks in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Britain and the Netherlands and human infections from these strains were all documented.