Provincial officials in China have reported two new cases of H7N9 avian flu, according to reports yesterday and today.
The first case is in Ningbo city in Zhejiang province in east central China, according to a China News story yesterday translated and posted by FluTrackers, an infectious disease news message board. The patient—whose age and sex were not specified—had contact with live poultry and is hospitalized.
The case prompts a travel advisory and adds to the list of affected countries.
Nearly 200 new suspected cases of microcephaly potentially related to the spread of Zika virus were reported in Brazil over the past week, raising the total of suspected cases to 2,975, according to a translated bulletin from Brazil's Ministry of Health (MOH) posted yesterday by infectious disease blog Avian Flu Diary.
After going 9 days without reporting a MERS-CoV infection, Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed a case yesterday.
Cape Verde reported its first Zika illnesses, while Panama and Honduras confirmed additional cases.
Also, the WHO provided more details about recent cases in Mexico, Paraguay, and Venezuela.
An alarming number of countries are reporting cases, as clinicians find more links to microcephaly and other neurologic complications.
The spread to more countries comes as Brazil reported 340 more possibly related microcephaly cases.
Countries in the Americas and Caribbean reported 4,370 recent cases of chikungunya, bringing the outbreak total to 1,768,106, according to a Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) update from late last week.
China has acknowledged two more H7N9 avian flu infections, both of which occurred in October, increasing the total in the early phase of what appears to be a fourth wave of infections to four. The cases, reported by China's National Health and Family Commission, were noted in a statement today from Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection (CHP).
