Hong Kong Reports 1st case of H7N9 Bird Flu

Hong Kong is a travel, trade, shipping and financial hub. The victim was a hotel maid. Could be the canary.

Hong Kong reports 1st case of H7N9 bird flu

Hong Kong has reported its first case of the H7N9 bird flu strain, in a possible sign the virus is spreading beyond mainland China since it first emerged there earlier this year.

A 36-year-old Indonesian maid is in hospital in critical condition, the southern Chinese financial hub's Health Secretary Ko Wing-man said late Monday.

...H7N9 was first identified April. It has sickened 139 people and killed 45 in China and Taiwan.

...scientists fear the virus will re-emerge in the winter, when influenza is most active.

Ko said the semiautonomous Chinese city's government would step up its flu pandemic preparedness plan.

reply to post by soficrow


I wanted to take a moment and thank you, Soficrow, for staying vigilant on this topic. In my almost 2 years on ATS, you have been a constant source of factual, well balanced and insightful information on the topic of avian flu.

reply to post by LordOfArcadia


Thank you.

Somebody has to do it.

Well, crap!

I saw an article on this saying she was in the habit of buying her own Chinese chickens to slaughter and eat which could have explained how she got it. Then they went on to explain how everyone around her was displaying flu-like symptoms. That was disturbing enough.

Now, yours reports that she's a hotel maid in the bargain. That's just outstanding. /sarc

reply to post by ketsuko


Aww. Sorry. Roll with it? This might not be it but something will be. (Have you been watching MERS?) ... anyway, depending on the source, between 17 and 200 people are in isolation/quarantine after contact with the infected maid. None have tested positive yet. Most interesting, the Scripps Institute just released a study claiming that H7N9 cannot be transmitted person-to-person at all (not true, such transmission is very limited but it's there) - smacks of damage control and market and media manipulation. Suggests something's up (protecting Hong Kong financial interests?).

reply to post by soficrow


Oh, MERS is bad, too. That was fun watching the Hajj.


It's only a matter of time before something breaks out, but I'd rather it not happen anytime soon.

reply to post by ketsuko


UPDATE

Hong Kong confirms second human H7N9 bird flu case in a week

Hong Kong — Hong Kong health authorities on Friday confirmed a new human case of the deadly H7N9 bird flu, the second case to come to light in less than five days.

Hong Kong Sees 2nd Cas of Bird Flu in a Week

…Leung believed both were imported cases although there had not been any confirmed H7N9 cases in Shenzhen.

“We don’t know whether he came into contact with live poultry in Shenzhen, but in Hong Kong, certainly not,” he said.

Leung said the chance of the family members contracting the disease was low because the man did not cough or sneeze a lot or have diarrhoea before. It was also unlikely that the virus was spreading human to human, but sporadic cases were expected as temperature began to drop, he said.

China reported a new H7N9 case too. NOTE: "the virus doesn't latch on to human cells strongly enough to pose a pandemic threat."

Hong Kong and China report new H7N9 cases

Health officials in Hong Kong today said they detected a second imported H7N9 flu case, in an 80-year-old man from the mainland, while mainland China reported another new infection, which sickened a 30-year-old man from Zhejiang province.

Both of the H7N9 cases reported this week have travel ties to Shenzhen, a major city just north of Hong Kong in China's Guangdong province. The new case in Zhejiang, about 800 miles northeast of Guangdong province, further boosts the province's status as China's hardest hit by the H7N9 virus.

…Meanwhile, new scientific findings released today suggest that the virus doesn't latch on to human cells strongly enough to pose a pandemic threat, though the virus bears close monitoring for further changes.

reply to post by soficrow


Seems to me they are always moving the goal posts with these things.

The domestic worker had a history of buying chickens to slaughter which is supposed to be her means of becoming infected. Previously, we were historically told that in order to become infected with avian flu viruses you had to have prolonged and very close contact with birds. You had to practically live with them.

Driving into China to buy a chicken doesn't seem to fit that criteria of prolonged contact.

So, either they understand things better, never understood then at all, or are just moving the goalposts to try to make everyone feel better. No matter how I look at that, it doesn't exactly make me feel better about it.

reply to post by ketsuko


They really don't know much for certain. Human-to-human transmission clearly does occur but not efficiently, so none of the avian flu's are a pandemic threat. Yet.

Seems H7N9 is loose in the environment. Recent tests found traces of the virus in environmental samples from 2 Shenzhen markets but notably, NOT in chickens. This means there is a high risk that H7N9 will spread throughout Guangdong Province.

Two Shenzhen wet markets test positive for H7N9 bird flu virus

Two wet markets in Shenzhen have been found to have traces of the H7N9 bird flu virus, Guangdong health authorities announced on Wednesday.

A health spokesman said three out of 70 environmental samples collected from 13 wet markets had tested positive for the deadly bird flu strain.

...The spokesman said experts believe the risk of the H7N9 virus spreading throughout Guangdong was very high, and other cases would be discovered in the area soon.