The world rarely receives advance notice of a significant public health threat, but the detection of the highly pathogenic form of H7N9 avian influenza in China serves as a second warning, an expert from the World Health Organization's collaborating center in Australia said today in a Cell Research commentary.
The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health (MOH) today reported a new case of MERS-CoV in Bisha, the third within the last week.
A 67-year-old Saudi woman is in stable condition after presenting with symptoms of MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) infection. Her source of infection is listed as "primary," meaning it's unlikely she contracted the virus from another person.
The strain resulted from a mix of high-path H5N8 and low-path H3N6.
An analysis of 40 human H7N9 avian flu clusters from five waves of disease activity in China found a stable pattern in number and size, suggesting that the human-to-human transmission risk hasn't changed since the virus emerged in 2013. A team from China and their collaborators at the US Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention reported its findings yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
In South Korea, H5N6 developments in poultry prompted a move to the highest avian flu alert level.
Tests on a traditional healer in Kenya who was a contact of one of the lab-confirmed Uganda Marburg patients has tested negative, and other high-risk contacts in Kenya have completed their 21-day monitoring periods, with no other illnesses detected, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday.
Bulgaria and South Africa report outbreaks, and the USDA approves the first poultry DNA vaccine.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in its weekly FluView report today, noted that cases are rising across the United States, and two states, Louisiana and South Carolina, are seeing moderate activity.
A retrospective review of confirmed H7N9 avian influenza infections from China's Guangdong province to learn more about the demographics, disease severity, and treatment found that early oseltamivir treatment was linked to fewer intensive care unit (ICU) admissions and deaths.
Two studies report high mortality rates in wild birds and unprecedented rapid genetic reassortment.
