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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 most recent, cumulative World Health Organization (WHO) table of human H5N1 cases was published on March 3, 2015.[1] This table notes a total of 88 human H5N1 cases in Egypt through March 3, 2015. As I noted previously [2] the tabulation of counts based on the line list of cases published in the monthly risk summaries only totals 82 cases for Egypt in 2015 based on onset dates in reports of 2015. To understand the confusion in the Egyptian case counts in the WHO table, it is necessary to consider the 2014 totals provided by WHO. The current WHO cumulative table reports 46 cases of H5N1 in 2014 with 31 cases from Egypt.[1] However, individual enumeration of WHO-confirmed H5N1 cases based on line lists in the monthly risk assessments shows a total of 52 H5N1 cases in 2014 (based on onset dates), with 37 of these reported from Egypt.[3] The table below identifies the distribution of WHO-confirmed H5N1 from Egypt by each of the monthly summaries for 2014 through the most recent asse...

In late December 2014, Egypt surpassed Indonesia in the number of reported A(H5N1) cases.[1] As of March 3, 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed a worldwide cumulative total of 784 human H5N1 cases, about 37% or 292 of these cases have been reported from Egypt (Table 1). Eighty-two of those cases from Egypt occurred in the first two months of 2015.[2] In addition, media reports suggests that another four cases have occurred since late February in Egypt and may be included in future monthly updates by WHO.[3]   The recent WHO report from 3 March 2015 notes “ The number of laboratory-confirmed human cases of avian influenza A(H5N1) virus infection in Egypt with onsets of illness in the months of December 2014, January and February 2015 are the highest numbers reported by any country in a single month.” To put these statistics in perspective, about 36% of all H5N1 cases reported from Egypt have occurred in the last 3 months. The graph below shows the distributi...

Influenza A(H5N1) jumped to humans for the first time in 1997 and since then more than 650 confirmed cases of H5N1 have been reported. These cases have been reported from 15 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, but none from countries in the Western Hemisphere. On January 8, Canadian public health officials announced that a woman, in her late 20s, from Red Deer, Alberta, died from H5N1 on Jan 3, 2014. She had returned from the People’s Republic of China via Beijing after visiting for three weeks within China. She apparently fell ill on the return flight to North America. Although it is likely she was infected in China in late December 2013, this is the first confirmed case of H5N1 reported in North America. (link below) Should you be concerned if you live in North America? This single case does not indicate that there is an H5N1 outbreak in North America. A single imported case in Canada should not spark pandemic hysteria. Even though over the years researchers have speculated that H5N1 ...

The first human cases of infection from a reassortant avian influenza  A(H7N9) virus were reported from the People’s Republic of China (China) on March 31, 2013.[1] Since then more than 145 confirmed and probable human cases of H7N9 infection have been officially reported. Of the cases reported through December 31, 2013, about 71% are male and 29%, female. Among the reported cases, the ages range from 2 years old to 91 years old. The median age is 60. Besides two imported case in Taiwan, one in April and one in December 2013, all other H7N9 have occurred within the country of China. A recent summary of human H7N9 cases is presented on pages 102 and 103 in Update on the situation of avian influenza A(H7N9) infection by the Hong Kong Centre for Health Protection.[2] Another current summary is available from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.[3] The last official World Health Organization (WHO) tabulation of cases was published in October 25, 2013.[4]   ...