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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| New China H7N9 bird flu cases 'signal potential winter epidemic' |
| 2013-10-27 |
| (Reuters) - Fresh human cases in eastern China of a deadly new strain of bird flu signal the potential for "a new epidemic wave" of the disease in coming winter months, scientists said on Thursday. The strain, known as H7N9, emerged for the first time in humans earlier this year and killed around 45 of the some 135 people it infected before appearing to peter out in China During the summer. But a new case in October in a 35-year-old man from China's eastern Zhejiang province shows that the virus "has re-emerged in winter 2013" and "indicates a possible risk of a larger outbreak of H7N9 this winter," according to Chinese researchers writing in the online journal Euro surveillance. Flu experts around the world have been warning that despite the marked drop off in cases during the summer months, the threat posed by H7N9 bird flu has not passed. Ab Osterhaus, a leading virologist based at the Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands who has been tracking the virus, told Reuters earlier this month: "We're bracing for what's going to happen next." The first scientific analysis of probable transmission of the new flu from person to person, published in the British Medical Journal in August, gave the strongest proof yet that it can jump between people and so could potentially cause a human pandemic. And another study published in August identified several other H7 flu viruses circulating in birds that "may pose threats beyond the current outbreak". One advantage of living in the southern hemisphere is we get 6 months to prepare if this shit actually happens. |
| Posted by:phil_b |