Re: Mexico - Highly pathogenic avian influenza H7N3 has affected over 40% of the total volume
Re: Mexico - Highly pathogenic avian influenza H7N3 has affected over 40% of the total volume
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/cultura/69319.html
Spanish-English translation
Avian influenza: the transmission routes
The H7N3 virus only rarely detected in Jalisco has happened to human beings. Decipher its genetic material in Mexico
Monday July 16, 2012
Guillermo Cardenas Guzman | The Universal
billthekaiser@gmail.com
Unlike the H1N1 virus, whose eruption in 2009 was a surprise to the public and health authorities in Mexico, the outbreak of H7N3 avian variety detected in late June in poultry farms in Jalisco has not jeopardized the national health system.
But the possibility of infection with this agent-qualified at the beginning and "exotic" because never before presented a case in the country, spreading to other regions or create an epidemic has forced health authorities to implement strict epidemiological surveillance and control.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food, through the Health Service, Food Safety and Food Quality (SENASICA) established a 80-kilometer cordon sanitaire around the three farms where the first H7N3 virus was detected. This prevented the infection is passed to broilers.
This was compounded by the destruction of more than two and a half million infected birds and the complete sequencing of the H7N3 genome, completed by scientists at the SENASICA. "It is very important because if we do not identify the enemy quickly we will not know what we are fighting," said the agency's director Enrique S?nchez Cruz.
The biologist Antonio Lazcano, Laboratory of Microbiology at the Faculty of Sciences of the UNAM, consider the decoding of the genome of this infectious agent help you understand its features, shape replication and pathogenicity in birds (which is considered high by SAGARPA):
"The comparison of sequences, particularly those encoding the surface proteins, which facilitates virus entry into cells, as well as replicases of (proteins that can translate their genetic material, RNA) can in effect identify and explain the efficiency of replication and pathogenicity of it. "
The school anticipates that the new outbreak control will depend on the measures "tough but effective" as the slaughter of sick birds or carry the virus.
Few people affected
The Health Secretary Chertoriski Solomon ruled that the avian influenza affect people, "throughout history has never been a case of transmission of this virus to humans and it seems important to reiterate this message: no risk of contagion in humans, "he said during a media conference.
It is true that one of the main targets of H7N3 are the chickens and turkeys, can get it to come into contact with other migratory birds in the aquatic environment, such as wild ducks. However, the literature indicates that there have been infections by this agent in humans, although in rare cases.
A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in America, entitled Human H7N3 avian influenza from ilness, British Columbia (available online,
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/10/12/ 04-0961.htm) documented the first cases detected in humans by an outbreak of H7N3 occurred in 2004 in that province in western Canada.
"Although enhanced surveillance identified 57 people suspected of having avian influenza infection, this was confirmed only in two of them. Both had conjunctivitis and pains similar to flu, similar to those reported in the Netherlands in association with another H7 subtype (H7N7), "say the authors of the paper, attached to various health institutions in Canada.
?Potential pandemic?
The report states that the avian influenza subtype H7 (and variants, not just H7N3) has caused human infections before. Most notable, he adds, were 89 confirmed and one death in the Netherlands in 2003. Clarifies that the severity of symptoms differs significantly (very low) compared with those produced by the H5N1 flu.
Moreover, the document warns that "low severity that should not lead to the inference that has a low potential pandemic as minor infections can become more virulent, either through a genetic rearrangement (gene recombination) derived from the spread surreptitiously or through mutations. "
However, Professor Antonio Lazcano possible that this agent has pandemic potential exotic and ensures that the big difference with regard to influenza viruses and their ability to infect one kind or another is determined by the receivers: we have those which enable the H5N1 stay, but are in the lower respiratory tract.
The student of the origin of life argues that all viruses coevolve with their hosts (the organisms that infect) and therefore considers it unlikely that this new subtype H7N3 is transmitted to humans (via rearrangement or mutations), although have registered the cases cited in Canada and the Netherlands.
"I see it as an event of extremely low probability, practically negligible. The problem is not the quantity of poultry to be infected (massive amount) if not controlled the epidemic, but the type of mutations that are required for the virus become a human pathogen.
"I think the probability of human infection of H7N3 in the case is much lower than with the H5N1 virus but like all interrelated, as the respective hosts, I'm not surprised the Canadian cases you mention" adds Lazcano.
The SENASICA also reported that the virus genome and identified some variants of low pathogenic agent that will serve as "seeds" for and then produce a vaccine antiinfluenza in Mexico. In the next three weeks are expected to have at least 80 million doses for the first stage, in which four laboratories already working Mexicans.
