Avian influenza: what danger to humans?

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Avian influenza: what danger to humans?

Fran?ois Roger - the 10/22/2013

EXPERT OPINION - H5N1, H7N9: Dr. Roger Francis, an epidemiologist at CIRAD, provides an update on recent studies on these variants of the flu passed to humans by birds.
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Same Chinese origin to H5N1 and H7N9

Work on these two viruses, H5N1 and H7N9, trace their origin to the same area in China. Chinese researchers have found compelling evidence that high-risk areas of human infection with the H7N9 subtype and H5N1 are codistributed in a region bordering the provinces of Anhui and Zhejiang, suggesting that this region could be an area where emerge and / or transmit new strains of influenza virus.
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http://sante.lefigaro.fr/actualite/2...er-pour-lhomme

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=212718

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Avian influenza: what danger to humans?

The danger is great for H7N9, since the unknowns for this new strain are various and concern its possible pandemic from, with the usual big questions about case-fatality rate, attack rate and severity of illness in different geographic and social backgrounds.

It is time for international health agencies to re-examine the public health impact of a such low probability event before the situation will go out of control.

The level of irresponsibility demonstrated by local and national Chinese autothorities is great and concern firstly the equation where the economic losses due to full or partial closures of live poultry markets (at wholesale and retail level) has been valued as Greater than the possible immense impact on morbidity and mortality if the H7N9 would become easily transmissible between humans.

They are wrong and the public have to be informed about this mistaken before the disease will start to spread without control.

China has more than a billion of inhabitants: have Rules determined the impact of an illness that may hit half of this population and likely leave on the ground hundreds of thousands of deaths as well as a crumbling economy and a possible loss of societal cohesion.

It is impossible to predict the evolution of the novel influenza viruses, and the past is of no usefulness, but the chances to have a disaster under the foot should have alarmed more than a single nation or President around the world.

Current hospitalized people in China are critically ill, and in my view these people have been considered expendable by their rulers, since a year is passed since the first human cases and no recognizable actions have been implemented to reduce the circulation of the virus among poultry.

gm