faulker024

Note: Between January 1 and January 9 2017, China officially reported  to WHO at least another 107 human cases of H7N9 most with onset dates in 2016. The information presented below relates to  the first 125 cases reported with onset dates in 2016.  updated January 11, 2017 The first officially reported human case of infection from a reassortant avian influenza A(H7N9) virus was from the People’s Republic of China (China) in March of 2013, although human H7N9 infection may have occurred in or near Hong Kong as early as 2007 (FAO ID event 220957). Since 2013 the World Health Organization (WHO) has officially reported 808 human cases of H7N9 as of December 23, 2016. In the past few days, an additional 13 H7N9 cases have been reported by public health officials in China but have not yet been published by the WHO. Of these 821 cases, 696 have onset or reporting dates prior to December 31, 2015. The total number of reported H7N9 cases in 2016 is 125. Geographic Distribution ...

Influenza A(H5N6) is an emerging novel avian influenza that apparently derived from a reassortment of A(H5N1) with A(H6N6). H5N6 was first reported in domestic poultry in early 2014 from Laos, Vietnam, and China. Since then it has continued to be widely reported from domestic flocks in these countries (primarily China). In April 2014, the first case of a human infected with the H5N6 influenza virus was reported from Sichuan Province in China. Since then, seven additional human cases have been reported, all from China. The most recent case was reported from Jieyang, Guangdong Province a few days ago. Of these eight cases, six have been reported by the World Health Organization (see links below). Based on onset dates two of these cases occurred in 2014, four in 2015. Onset dates for the two most recent cases have not yet been reported. Among these cases are five males and three females. One of the females was pregnant. Her child was delivered by caesarian section and the woman is appare...

In an article to be published in the journal Microbial Pathogenesis , Chinese researchers report on a 4 year serological surveillance project of Influenza A on pigs farms in   Guangdong, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Yunnan Provinces in Southern China.[1] As the authors note, pigs are believe to be intermediate hosts or mixing vessels of pandemic influenza viruses. Influenza viruses can undergo reassortment in pigs, allowing the virus to adapted to humans and possibly cause a pandemic. The serological study used haemagglutination inhibition (HI) tests to examine antibodies of H5 and H9 viruses among the samples from pigs. The good news is that the researchers failed to find H5 infections (Clade 2.3.2) within the pig samples. A ressortant H5N1 virus from pigs could easily start the next pandemic. H5 viruses have already infected more than 600 people from numerous countries in the last decade, so an H5N1 pandemic is a serious concern. The bad news is that the authors found an infection rat...

This blog will provide personal observations and speculations about current novel infectious diseases. When people contract an infectious disease for which they do not have any natural defense or immunity the disease is called a novel infectious disease.   Generally these infections are zoonoses [1], diseases that are transmitted between animal sources and humans. In the past decade, a number of novel infectious diseases have erupted around the world including SARS, influenza A(H5N1) [ bird flu ], and the 2009 H1N1 pandemic virus. In the past 12-14 months, two new diseases have jumped to humans from unknown animal sources.    Since April of 2012, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has claimed the lives of at least 30 people and infected more than 20 others in eight different countries including France, Italy, Jordan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom [2]. In the past 60-90 days, avian influenza A(H7N...