This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
H7N9 case count surpasses 100
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
The case count for influenza A(H7N9) has passed the triple-digit mark, with 126 laboratory-confirmed cases in China, according to WHO. There also have been 24 deaths.
WHO China representative Michael O’Leary, MD, MPH, said Friday that WHO and the China National Health and Family Planning Commission are leading a joint mission of experts who will visit areas affected by H7N9 to study the situation and make recommendations to prevent and control the spread of the disease.
“This is not because of changes in the scope or scale of the event,” O’Leary said during a media briefing. “There continue to be sporadic cases reported every day, but our risk assessment has not changed. Nor is it because of concerns about the investigation itself, as Chinese authorities have been demonstrating their capacity for this investigation. This mission is a concrete example of international cooperation in action.”
O’Leary said poultry continues to be the suspected source of transmission, but there is not yet a strong epidemiological link. Only a small number of chicken and birds tested have been positive for H7N9, and none of those animals were sick. This is in contrast to the more common influenza A(H5N1), which caused illness in birds.
“With this different situation in animals, the presumed source of infection, we are still uncertain about the source of illness in people,” O’Leary said.
There have been three small clusters of illness in which close contacts of cases became ill: two have been a parent and child and one was a husband and wife. However, human-to-human transmission has not yet been confirmed.
“These might be cases of one person passing the disease to another, or they may have been exposed to the same source of infection,” O’Leary said. “Even though we are concerned if the disease can pass from one person to another, it still seems that this does not happen easily, or we would see many such cases.”
WHO does not advise special screening at points of entry, nor does it recommend any travel or trade restrictions.