Bird flu in China spread between people

Chinese scientists offer first clear evidence that H7N9 strain is sometimes able to spread from person to person.

CHINA-HEALTH-FLU
At least 132 cases and 37 deaths in China and Taiwan have been linked to the H7N9 virus [AFP]

Chinese scientists have reported the first likely case of direct human-to-human transmission of the H7N9 bird flu virus that has killed over 40 people since March.

These findings suggest that potential genetic susceptibility might be one of the determinants

by British online journal, BMJ

The development was “worrying” and should be closely watched, the team wrote in the British online journal, BMJ, on Wednesday, but stressed that the virus, believed to jump from birds to people, was still inept at spreading among humans.

“People should not panic,” epidemiologist Chang-jun Bao of the hard-hit Jiangsu province’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, told AFP news agency of the report that he co-authored.

“The transmissibility of this novel virus… was not so effective.”

Scientists have long feared the virus would mutate into a form that transmits easily from person to person.

In the new study, Bao and a team report on the case of a 60-year-old man who died in hospital after contracting the H7N9 virus, which he apparently transmitted to his daughter.

The 32-year-old woman, who had nursed her father for over a week, also died in hospital.

She had no access to potentially infected poultry, leading investigators to conclude that the “most likely explanation” for her illness was direct virus transmission from her father, who had regularly visited live poultry markets.

‘Easily transmitted’

Genetic tests of virus samples from the two patients also revealed they were “almost identical”.

Despite this apparent evidence of direct transmission, none of 43 other people who had had close contact with the two patients, including hospital staff, contracted the virus.

Doctors in China are trying to establish how people are being infected with a lethal strain of bird flu

“These findings suggest that potential genetic susceptibility might be one of the determinants and that avian influenza viruses… are more easily transmitted between individuals with genetic connection,” said the paper.

The scientists noted they had been unable to interview the two critically ill patients and could not definitively rule out the possibility that the daughter picked up the virus somewhere else, although this seemed “less likely”.

Official figures released last month said the H7N9 virus had made 132 people ill in mainland China since the first human cases were reported in March, of which 43 died. One case was recorded in Taiwan.

H7 influenza viruses comprise a group that normally circulate among birds, of which H7N9 forms a subgroup that had never been found in humans until the Chinese outbreak.

Odd cases of human-to-human transmission had also been reported in other bird flu types like H5N1 and H7N7 – none of which has mutated into an easily spreadable form, and so to see it in H7N9 was not surprising.

Source: AFP