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| Click on image to enlarge. Please note, this chart is based on publicly available data and its completeness suffers accordingly. It is provided as a guide only. Each black line (y-axis; FluTracker's case numbering is used for comparability) represents a single, laboratory-confirmed H7N9 patients' journey through time (the bottom, x-axis). Data on patient discharge dates were particular patchy in 2013 and I have yet to update what is available onto this chart (please ignore the terminal coloured dots for now) |
...and its associated headaches.
This is a chart the really relies on complete data to be of full use.
I just had a look at the 2013 chart...you can find it here... which was last updated 02.06.2013. It's clear from that figure that detail on when H7N9 cases leave hospital was pretty scarce at the end of the first outbreak; or I couldn't find it. There has been a tally described in the past - around 86 cases discharged I think - but which cases is largely unclear.
So you can see that a lot of the 2013 patient's timelines trail off into infinity. By now those ill people would have been discharged or are part of the fatal cases list. Interesting that that link above describes a case that was hospitalized for 67-days, before succumbing.
Today I began the next case timeline chart for 2014. It's still a work in progress as I have yet to trawl through the cases to see which have been described as discharged (some definitely have) and I have not yet included those cases who were not admitted because illness was mild or without any obvious signs of disease at all.
As you can see from the new chart of 82 cases with a date of illness onset of 01-Jan-2014 or later (you'll need to click on it to appreciate the detail), the number of fatal cases, to date, is much lower tan it was in 2013's first wave of H7N9 infections.
It would not be surprising to find that most cases remain hospitalized in 2014 as the majority have been initially described as critical, severe or serious in this second round. I wonder how the contacts of these case are faring?
I will try to flesh this out in the coming weeks. Hopefully we remain as red dot-free as we are now.
