Anyone else keeping a little eye on the new flu virus?

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Seems that we have a newly emerging avian flu virus in the Shanghai region of China. Utterly unrelated to H5N1, this one is an H7N9 strain and never been seen before in humans. I spotted it at the beginning of the week (while ironically looking for the latest news on the new corona virus -emerging diseases are a bit of an interest of mine)

So far it has killed 6 and 14 are officially declared to be infected. It seems to have first popped up mid February but since identified at the weekend the cases seem to be starting to pop up quite quickly.

From what I've read it's a low pathogen avian flu, which means that it doesn't tend to kill birds off, but it has aquired genes which are adapted to mammalian infection. (Flu viruses are great at swapping genes amongst themeselves) Yesterday the Chinese authorities said they have found it in pigeons in a market and so are closing down poultry markets in the area.

Some are linking it to the 14,00 pig deaths found in rivers in shanghai in mid march and indeed pigs can be a good carrier of some flu strains, but authorities say they haven't found any evidence of flu in the pigs though they still don't know what killed them.

WHO currently say there is no evidence of sustained human to human transmission. It could stay that way, lots of viruses don't really adapt properly to a species and fade out. On the very positive side, scientists are really alert to emerging viruses now and detect new ones very quickly. This means that alerts go up very quickly about diseases that fail to get hold in the human population. So hopefully it may well be the same with this virus.

[harbinger]

Have they picked up corona ?

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Some variation of it Harbinger, though why they could get it with nasal swabs when many of the symptomatic cases needed to take samples from the lungs seems to be a little curious to me.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Def something very odd going on, WHO lab is testing those cases and has come up with them as being negatives and there's a pro-med article blaming in on rumours. So I think I would discount them - probably.

[harbinger]

Hmmmmm. Let's see..........

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

they are rapidly back pedalling on it! But you are right, i is very hard to know what is true and what will happen.

[harbinger]

Another one in Saudi. See CIDRAP

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

I've not looked at CIDRAP before. Cool site!

[harbinger]

Thought that would get you interested. What do you make of it?

Italy, ha

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

It is interesting in how sporadic the cases still appear to be in Saudi. They've still not discovered the reservoir, so where is it coming from?

[harbinger]

When's the Hajj?

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

October, but there will be a big influx of pilgrims next month during Ramadan.

[harbinger]

That's what I thought.

[harbinger]

I've just come back from an East Midland's town that is now over 50% non white.

The rich are rich.Poor are poor.White are white.

The peeps in the Mercs have no integration. Then....

Is there (how much) any reading between the lines.

[harbinger]

And a huge influx back after. Joy of joys.

[meditrina]

BBC article on the death of a patient in UK from corona virus

It says he was flown here from Qatar last September - so it seems he did not catch it here. But that's a very long time for an illness to remain so severe.