For the fourth day in a row, no new lab-confirmed H7N9 influenza infections were reported from China, but the World Health Organization (WHO) in two separate updates today provided more details about four case reports it received from China on Mar 7 and Mar 8.
China reported no H7N9 infections or deaths over the past 3 days, keeping the total number of human cases at 389, according to searches of provincial health announcements and a case compilation kept by FluTrackers, an infectious disease news message board. The unofficial number of deaths remained at 120.
Overall US influenza activity continues to decline, but the share of deaths attributed to flu and pneumonia is still on the high side, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its weekly update.
The cases are from three separate provinces, and a previously reported case-patient has died.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) announced two new Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infections today, one of them fatal.
Hong Kong health officials today announced another imported H7N9 influenza infection, in an 18-month-old girl who had recently traveled to mainland China's Guangdong province, one of the hot spots in the most recent wave of cases.
The girl's illness is the sixth imported H7N9 case detected in Hong Kong since December, according to a statement today from Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection (CHP).
Over the past 3 days China reported one new fatal H7N9 case and confirmed three other deaths.
A US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel today made its recommendation on strains to include for the next flu season vaccine. The move is part of a process that the Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) conducts to review the most current flu strains, surveillance, and updates on vaccine performance, uptake, and manufacturing.
Two of the cases are in young, hospitalized girls from the same Zhejiang province city.
Active surveillance in Egypt found that 10% of all poultry samples from August 2010 through January 2013 tested positive for avian flu, and the H9N2 strain emerged in the country during that time and co-infected birds with H5N1, according to a report yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
