U.S. Hospitals Told to Be on Lookout for H7N9 Bird Flu

I looked up symptoms for this H7 virus and it's still saying to stay away from infected animals and people infected by animals. They should probably update all of these sites soon if this has less to do with animals and is more human to human: most people live in cities so would think they are not at risk.

What is bad about these strains is they appear to change 'before' a vaccine is administered - is a microscopic chameleon. Maybe it's good that those who get this are so sick they succumb to the hospital/doctors office (most). In that way it stays contained. Sounds like a brutal flu so let's hope people listen and get help or stay at home - not run to the store or try to go to work. If infection happens before symptoms arrise it's more concerning.

reply to post by Craninalbliss


China just created the very first bird flu vaccine, specifically for H7N9 - the announcement was made Saturday. ...The infection rate is low at present, and mainly bird -> human, with limited human-to-human spread. China has been testing a lot so the number of unknown infections is likely insignificant. The (known) mortality rate is incredibly high at around 30%.

..."We're bracing for what's going to happen next. If H7N9 becomes easily transmissible between humans, yes, the case fatality ratio may go down a little from where it is now, but we'd still be talking about millions of people dying," says Osterhaus, the head of a highly bio-secure laboratory in the Netherlands...

China makes history with H7N9 bird flu vaccine

reply to post by soficrow

no panic yet nor fear... the for flu it is not here yet , this is a disrtraction form the real flu outbreak that is to come as it allways does this time of year for more about this go here www.cdc.gov...

The regular flu started early for our area, and is still going strong. It usually doesn't hit so hard, and isn't noticeable until the Spring. This year it's different.

My personable observation of about 5 people around me - same ones getting sick over and over - like they can't quite kick it out. It lingers (or is going away while a new strain comes along maybe). Bad headaches, fever of about 99 - 100, cough, runny nose, weakness - some have stomach symptoms. Goes away entirely and then returns. After 4-5 episodes like this I'm seeing it spread since it's just enough to not justify staying home. Maybe this always happens and I'm more aware of it this year. But if I get the flu it is rare - happens with one good bout and does not return. The fact it is lingering means the immune system doesn't know how to eradicate it entirely - or people aren't fully recovering as it's mild enough to make them believe all is well - so keep passing it back and forth.

Elliot
In the US, what happens to people who have no health insurance and cannot afford medical treatment?

You sit inline behind everyone else in a packed emergency room here. I cannot speak for the rest of the country but the ER here is already constantly packed because people know they can get free care. In the last few years they have opened up chest pain and stroke specific ER's because of this. Which I am very thankful for. I had to rush a relative in to the stroke ER not long ago and passed the regular ER they had at least 25 people waiting.

This is also a small hospital. I stay away from large hospitals because in my personal experience the wait times are much worse. I carry hand sanitizer with me everywhere I go. I touch something I wash my hands with it. I know this won't stop inhalation but I am doing everything I can do including limiting contact. Some people do not have that luxury especially those with children in public schools.

Anyhow hope that helps. BTW OP do you think the reservoir could be somewhere else? If this is already crossing species borders to jump into humans could it be in other species? Thank you.

reply to post by Pimpintology

...BTW OP do you think the reservoir could be somewhere else? If this is already crossing species borders to jump into humans could it be in other species? Thank you.

Good questions. If it's like H5N1... it's in the soil, water, and assorted insects and animals including flies. But little has been determined with H7N9, or at least, the information has not been released.

reply to post by camaro68ss


That number has to be incorrect (spanish flu). It had a much higher mortality rate than 2%.
There were around 1,860,000,000 people. The number infected varies from a third of the population to a fifth.

So if a third was infected thats like 620,000,000 and of that 50 million to 100 million were killed. So that would put the percentage that died between 5 and 10 (i think this is super rough math from my noggin).

The numbers are all very shifty from that era, but I would guess the mortality rate was somewhere closer to 12 - 20 percent for spanish flu.

I see sites that quote 2.5 percent mortality rates, but even a rough run over the number gives a higher percentage than that.

reply to post by GogoVicMorrow


Thanks. S& : up : The current info on Wikipedia concurs with your analysis.

The 1918 flu pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920)[1] was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus (the second being the 2009 flu pandemic). It infected 500 million[2] people across the world, including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and killed 50 to 100 million of them—3 to 5 percent of the world's population[3] at the time...

Most influenza outbreaks disproportionately kill juvenile, elderly, or already weakened patients; in contrast the 1918 pandemic killed predominantly previously healthy young adults. Modern research, using virus taken from the bodies of frozen victims, has concluded that the virus kills through a cytokine storm (overreaction of the body's immune system). The strong immune reactions of young adults ravaged the body, whereas the weaker immune systems of children and middle-aged adults resulted in fewer deaths among those groups.[11] ......

The global mortality rate from the 1918/1919 pandemic is not known, but an estimated 10% to 20% of those who were infected died. With about a third of the world population infected, this case-fatality ratio means 3% to 6% of the entire global population died.[29] Influenza may have killed as many as 25 million people in its first 25 weeks. Older estimates say it killed 40–50 million people,[4] while current estimates say 50–100 million people worldwide were killed.[30]

...This huge death toll was caused by an extremely high infection rate of up to 50% and the extreme severity of the symptoms, suspected to be caused by cytokine storms.[4] Symptoms in 1918 were so unusual that initially influenza was misdiagnosed as dengue, cholera, or typhoid. One observer wrote, "One of the most striking of the complications was hemorrhage from mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach, and intestine. Bleeding from the ears and petechial hemorrhages in the skin also occurred."[30] The majority of deaths were from bacterial pneumonia, a secondary infection caused by influenza, but the virus also killed people directly, causing massive hemorrhages and edema in the lung.[27]
The unusually severe disease killed up to 20% of those infected, as opposed to the usual flu epidemic mortality rate of 0.1%.[27][30]