H7N9 infection of women is not on the rise....

Click on image to enlarge.

A bit over a week ago I posted a chart showing that the proportion of females with avian influenza A(H7N9) virus may be rising.

We've had a lot of cases since then so is that trend still holding? 

[By the way, you are forgiven for  thinking this is the "H7N9 Down Under" blog!]

The new chart shows that the proportion of females has dropped back to something looking a little more like it did in 2013. The earlier data seems to have been a blip after all. 

With the addition of new cases to the dataset and with the shifting and re-sorting of cases into this or that week as onset data firm (WHO have recently been doing a fantastic job filling in the data gaps from Chinese reports), we can see that the proportion of females has been 40% or (often much) less each week for 10 of the past 14 (71.4%) weeks.  

In summary...

• The current proportion of female confirmed H7N9 cases overall is 29.5% (219/220 cases with data) 
• In 2013, females comprised 29.7% of cases
• In 2014 females comprise 29.5%. No difference to speak of.

So males dominate among the mostly severe human cases of H7N9 infection; business as usual for H7N9. 

Also, sustained person-to-person transmission (infected person passing to another  person, (1st round; = sporadic transmission) who passes it to another person (2nd round) and so on...is not happening.