Chinese scientists have taken the very rare step of making a public announcement concerning a new strain of bird flu.
The Chinese government usually tries to keep news about a new bird flu strain from being released into the public until it is a major health issue. However, a new strain of the virus called H10N8 apparently has shaken health officials to the level they are acting quickly to warn the public.
A 73-year-old woman from Nanchang City in southeast China died after being the first person found with the virus and a second person is confirmed to be infected with the virus. The scientists say the quick transmission makes it a more likely possibility the virus, which they believe transferred from wild birds to chickens, has mutated into a form that can be easily transmitted from birds to humans.
The report of the woman’s death published in the Lancet medical journal said “the pandemic potential of this novel virus should not be underestimated.”
Dr. John McCauley of the World Health Organization said that H10N8 does not cause serious disease in poultry and thus it is difficult to detect. While they don’t believe the virus would transmit well between humans, Dr. McCauley admitted there was not enough information to make a definitive claim.
The H7N9 bird flu has claimed another victim in Hong Kong.
The death marks the third death in the city since the arrival of the virus from China. The male victim, who has recently visited the Chinese city of Shenzhen, was admitted to the hospital less than 24 hours before he died.
The World Health Organization has been quietly using a new term when talking about transmission of the virus between humans. Studies of cases in China show that it is possible to transfer the virus between people so the term “sustained human-to-human transmission” is being used meaning that they don’t see infections happening on a mass scale.
The changes have happened since the virus was spotted in both Taiwan and Hong Kong, raising fears the virus is making its way out of China toward emerging nations that are not ready to handle the deadly virus.
The H7N9 virus was discovered last week at a Hong Kong market resulting in the slaughter of 20,000 birds.
It sounds like the plot of a thriller movie but it’s reality.
A “ghost ship” has been floating loose in the upper Atlantic Ocean and is believed to be heading to the British coast filled with aggressive, disease-ridden, cannibalistic rats.
The Lyubov Orlova was being towed by a second ship after it was seized from its previous owner because of unpaid debts. During the towing process, the boat broke free from the moorings and disappeared into the Atlantic. It has only been spotted from the air a few times and has sent out signals twice in March 2013 but then went silent.
Experts are now warning that the recent wave of severe storms throughout the region could be driving the ship directly into the British coast.
The belief comes from the fact the lifeboats attached to the ship have not activated indicating they have touched down in the ocean. If the ship had sunk, all the lifeboats would have had an emergency beacon activate.
If the ship were to make landfall, the disease infested rats could devastate the local rat population and be a major risk to humans for diseases like bubonic plague.
The first death from the H5N1 Avian Flu in North America has been confirmed in Canada.
Canadian public health officials did not release the identity of the victim but said they had been in China before flying to Vancouver on December 27th. They had reported being ill when they were on the flight from Beijing.
The patient was admitted to the hospital on New Year’s Day and died two days later.
Officials have contacted everyone on the Beijing to Vancouver flight for immediate testing for H5N1 but believe there is a very low risk to the flight passengers because of the rarity of human-to-human transmission.
“The risk of getting H5N1 is very low,” Health Minister Rona Ambrose said. “This case is not part of the seasonal flu, which circulates in Canada every year.”
In addition to the flight passengers, close contacts of the victim and the healthcare workers that treated them are also being screened for the virus.
Six new cases of the deadly MERS virus have appeared in the Middle East.
Five people in Saudi Arabia and one person in the United Arab Emirates have been infected with MERS according to the World Health Organization. One of the patients has died, bringing the death toll from the virus to 74 of 176 confirmed cases.
The WHO said the case in the United Arab Emirates was a woman married to a man who has been previously diagnosed with the disease. She is being kept in isolation in a hospital despite not showing any adverse symptoms.
Officials in the region are citing new research showing transfer between camels and humans in a warning telling people at risk for the virus to avoid barns and farms.
A mutation discovered in a new strain of bird flu has rendered the virus resistant to treatment drugs without limiting its ability to spread.
Most seasonal flu strains often become less transmissible when developing drug resistance, but scientists discovered that the H7N9 bird flu does not lose any of its spreading potential even with drug resistance.
Researchers said they do not believe this will make H7N9 any more likely to develop into a pandemic, but do recommend that doctors should be careful in their use of anti-viral medicines and consider using other drugs instead of Tamiflu to treat H7N9 cases.
The H7N9 bird flu has infected at least 139 people so far in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and has killed 45 people.
A strain of bird flu that was discovered in 1965 has infected a human being for the first time.
A 73-year-old Chinese woman died earlier this month of respiratory failure and a post-mortem examination showed she had contracted H10N8 bird flu. The H10N8 strain was discovered in birds in 1965 but had never been found in a human being.
Doctors said the woman was admitted with severe pneumonia, high blood pressure, neuromuscular problems and a heart attack. They had not suspected bird flu at the time of her admission.
Family members in contact with the woman have not shown symptoms of the virus. Officials say the woman had contact with animals at a live bird market four days before she fell ill.
Chinese health officials and the World Health Organization say they will be increasing their surveillance of hospitals to look for more potential H10N8 victims.
This is the second new bird flu virus to infect humans in China in 2013. H7N9, which has killed 45 of the 137 people it has infected, was discovered in March 2013.
It had been a long established scientific fact that when a flu virus obtained an immunity to particular anti-viral flu medications, they would become less effective in transmission between humans.
Now scientists have found the deadly H7N9 bird flu in China does not lose any of its infectivity when it becomes resistant to commonly used drugs like Tamiflu.
The researchers were quick to add that the drug-resistant H7N9 was not more infectious than in the past. They reiterated that the virus is one of the less transmittable viruses between humans.
H7N9 emerged earlier this year in China and has killed 45 of the 139 people confirmed to have been infected with the virus. Scientists had initially believed H7N9 could not transmit between humans but found cases in August of human-to-human transmission.
A separate study in the United States this week said that it was not impossible for H7N9 to mutate into a form that could be easily passed among humans.
Health officials in Madagascar are scrambling after 20 people in a village near the town of Mandritsara were confirmed to have died last week from bubonic plague.
The total in one week was one-third of last year’s world leading total of 60 plague deaths.
The BBC is reporting that health officials from the country’s capital have rushed to the scene to investigate and launch control measures. The plague deaths were confirmed on Tuesday by the Pasteur Institute of Madagascar.
Yersinia pestis, or black plague, is spread through rats and fleas. Humans can be infected if bitten by an infected rat or a flea from one of those rats. It cannot be transmitted between humans and is treatable if caught early.
Health officials are concerned because the disease can rapidly grow in poor hygiene conditions such as in prisons. The Madagascar prison system is overrun with rats and it’s feared hundreds could die if an infected rat taints a prison-based population.
Health officials in Hong Kong have quarantined 19 people after a second man has been found infected with the deadly H7N9 bird flu.
The latest case is an 80-year-old man who normally lives in the mainland China city of Shenzhen.
The man developed a fever and was taken to a hospital Friday where later tests revealed the deadly virus. Government officials then rounded up 19 people who had close contact with the elderly victim for testing and safety reasons.
According to sources, one of the 19 people had an “indeterminate” test meaning it’s possible they have been infected. The other 18 have tested negative.
Officials said they are investigating if the latest victim had contact with poultry while he was on the Chinese mainland. Investigators found no link between the latest victim and the first case discovered last week. That patient remains in critical condition.
The World Health Organization says that 138 human cases of H7N9 have been confirmed in China this year with 45 deaths.
