faulker024

As noted in the previous post, there have been at least 460 human cases of H7N9 reported in the current H7N9 outbreak between November 1, 2016 and February 27, 2017. Of great concern is a possibility that many of these cases are a result of human-to-human transmission. There is little publicly available information about the relationships, if any, among these hundreds of cases. To date, only four two-person clusters have been reported by the World Health Organization (WHO, January 17 and February 20) with family members comprising three of the clusters. For all four of these clusters, the WHO notes that human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out. One important clue to the nature of the outbreak is the geographic distribution of the reported cases. An indirect signal of human-to-human transmission can be multiple cases occurring in a localized geographic area within a short period of time. The recent WHO line listing of H7N9 cases from China ( Influenza at the Human Animal Interfa...

No new human cases of human influenza A(H5N1) infections have been officially reported anywhere in the world since June 2015.[Note] This is a six-month period without reports of any new human cases. Since 2003 when the World Health Organization (WHO) first began reporting human cases of H5N1, the longest interval with no reported H5N1 cases was a span of three months. Three of these 3-month periods of quiescence have occurred, one each in 2004, 2008, and 2012. Is the lack of human H5N1 cases in the last six month a sign that H5N1 is no longer a pandemic threat? Can we breathe a sigh of relief? Paradoxically, the answer is no. The lack of cases in the past six months should not lull us into a sense of complacency. Between January and June in 2015 there were a total of 143 human cases of H5N1 reported. This is the largest number of reported cases of H5N1 in any one year since the WHO started tracking human infections in 2003. The chart below shows the number of H5N1 cases reported by y...

The current outbreak in Riyadh started mid-July when a 56-year-old man became infected with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS). This individual had frequent contacts with camels and consumed raw camel milk. This man infected his 52-year-old wife, his 53-year-old brother, and 30-year old son. The index case and his wife are reported to have died. Almost 120 cases have been confirmed during this MERS outbreak in Riyadh through August 28, 2015.   As in other MERS outbreaks, more males then females are infected, about 61%. The males range in age from 2-109 years old with a median age of 61. The females range in age from 25 to 98 with a median age of 58. The fatality rate for this outbreak is about 25%, with similar death percentages for both males and females. However the fatality statistics could change because the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health is reporting that there are at least 50 cases still under treatment. In this outbreak, most of the infections had been con...

Since 2012, the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has infected almost 300 people, many of them healthcare workers including nurses and doctors. Infections of health care workers and patients that take place within or are associated with a hospital or health care facility are referred to as nosocomial infections. A large number of MERS cases can be classified as nosocomial infections. For the purposes of this discussion, localized geographic clusters of MERS-CoV cases that appear to represent hospital-acquired infections are referred to as nosocomial MERS clusters. Under this definition, there has been at least 10 separate nosocomial clusters of MERS cases. Of these clusters, only two have been reported in the literature [1,2]. The remaining nosocomial clusters are identified based on media reports, ministry of health reports, and World Health Organization reports. The quality of this data is uncertain but trends are clear and speculations can be advanced.  Th...