(H7N9 watch) Chef, 38, dies, scientists suggest testing birds in markets to trace silent killer

(41 mins ago)

A man in China’s Zhejiang Province has died of the H7N9 strain of bird flu, state media said, bringing the total deaths attributed to the virus to three since the first human cases.
He was one of two more H7N9 avian influenza infections reported in Zhejiang, in the east of the country, Xinhua news agency said citing local authorities. This brings the total number of cases to nine.
The latest fatality was a 38-year-old man who worked as a chef, Zhejiang media reported. The province's other case was a 67-year-old retiree being treated in hospital, the Zhejiang Daily newspaper said.
Two other deaths have been reported, both in Shanghai. Other cases have been reported in eastern Jiangsu and Anhui, the government has said.
Meanwhile, scientists said that based on information from genetic data and lab tests in China, the H7N9 virus appears to infect some birds without triggering noticeable symptoms, AP reported.
“We speculate that when this virus is maintained in poultry the disease will not appear, and similar in pigs, if they are infected, so nobody recognizes the infection in animals around them, then the transmission from animal to human may occur,'' said Dr Masato Tashiro, director of the World Health Organization's influenza research center in Tokyo and one of the specialists who studied the genetic data. “In terms of this phenomenon, it's more problematic.’’
This behavior is unlike the virulent H5N1 strain, which set off warnings when it began ravaging poultry across Asia in 2003. H5N1 has since killed 360 people worldwide.
“In that sense, if this continues to spread throughout China and beyond China, it would be an even bigger problem than with H5N1 in some sense, because with H5N1 you can see evidence of poultry dying, but here you can see this would be more or less a silent virus in poultry species that will occasionally infect humans,'' said University of Hong Kong microbiologist Dr Malik Peiris, a Sri Lankan expert who also examined the information.
Dr Peiris praised Chinese health authorities for being forthcoming with data and information, but said animal health agencies needed to step up and act quickly. He urged China to widely test healthy birds in live animal markets in the parts of the country where the human infections have been reported to find out what bird species might be hosting the virus and stop the spread.
“If you don't stamp it out earlier now, there won't be any chance of stamping it out in the future,'' Dr Peiris said. “It already may be too late, but this is the small window of opportunity that really one has to grasp, as quickly as possible.''
Other information gleaned from the genetic data was that the H7N9 virus was what scientists call a “gene re-assortant’’ _ in which three bird viruses swapped genes among themselves _ undergoing changes that allowed it to adapt more easily, though not fully, to human hosts, WHO's Tashiro said. One change has allowed it to lodge onto the surfaces of cells of mammals, making it easier to infect humans.
“The tentative assessment of this virus is that it may cause human infection or epidemic. It is still not yet adapted to humans completely, but important factors have already changed,'' Tashiro said.
In the wake of the outbreak, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention shared the genetic sequence of the new virus with the global health community. http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking_news_detail.asp?id=34300