Following on from yesterday's post, "If not poultry then what?", I thought it worth noting the impressive numbers from the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture.From 2013:1,630,000 poultry and environmental samples tested88 POS; all from live bird marketsNone from poultry farmsFrom 2014, to date:33,400 poultry and environmental samples8 H7N9 POS; all from live bird marketsNone from poultry farmsThe other...
Gung hei fat choi! & Gong Xi Fa Cai!
..to the Cantonese and Mandarin speaking readers who may stumble across this blog, as well as everyone else who visits!May all who read this have a happy, healthy and prosperous Lunar New Year, an enjoyable Spring Festival and much luck in the Chinese Year of the Hor...
H7N9 snapdate: cases in 2013 vs 2014...[UPDATED]
Since I started tracking this beastie (the same time I started this blog) in April 2013, I've tended to use weekly data - because more is more!This one presents the data by month and it really highlights that - at least to date - human infections with H7N9 have been focused on...
If not poultry then what? [UPDATED]
Maybe China needs to look at other animals, both within market environments and at the source farms (using sensitive molecular tools as they have been), to find the "smoking chicken" (shamelessly stolen from Mike Coston)...which may not be a chicken...
H7N9: Zhejiang in 50 cases...
Click on image to enlarge.A quick look at the same number of cases (50) during the same period of time (2-months) in Zhejiang province, across 2-years. In 2014, between 23-Nov to 23-Jan, H7N9 case numbers surpassed 50 whereas in 2013 H7N9 cases did not reach 50 during the 1st wave.Back...
H7N9 snapdate: new charts for sex and age distribution and region of acquisition...
Two new charts.Click on image to enlarge.Firstly, the "age pyramid", a revised and combined version of the age and sex distribution charts for 265/267 H7N9 cases to date. This one comes with many thanks to Shane Granger for helping me learn a new trick. Please follow him @gmggranger or visit his...
MERS-CoV antibodies in dromedary camels from Dubai, UAE, as far back as 2005...
Alexandersen and colleagues from Canada and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), writing in Transboundary and Emerging Diseases, recently described detecting antibodies to the MERS-CoV, or a close relative Their study is distinguished from similarly themed reports because it uses camel...
H7N9 snapdate: charts bonanza...[UPDATED]
Now that I see Mike Coston's tweet and blog post, it's fairly safe to assume that all the cases have been announced for today (tonight/morning, my time). I should be working on my seminar, but I'm doing this instead. Apparently that makes me a "data wonk"...a definition I just learned tonight from CDC...
A date with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV)..
Click on image to enlarge.Do regions that host transient high concentrationsof MERS-CoV (or a related virus)-positive animals play akey role in the sporadic and geographically widespreadhuman infections?This article in the Saudi Gazette was referred to me by a kindly commenter...
Freeze those chickens....
As 8 new H7N9 cases are announced today we see a very welcome comment from Hangzhou City's mayor, Zhang Hongming..."Hangzhou is planning to close live poultry trading markets permanently and promote the supply chains of frozen poultry products instead"If Zhejiang Province can carry this off, it would be perhaps the single biggest intervention and risk mitigation step possible. Centralising poultry...
Influenza H7N9 in the news....
Some snippets of information about H7N9 from China in recent releases include:The description of H7N9-induced disease has changed in 2014 from an "infectious disease" to a "communicable acute respiratory disease". For what that's worth. Still technically infectious, just more about what sort of disease.7 patients have died with H7N9 infection in 2014The incubation period for signs and symptoms to...
Zhejiang: more live bird market closures...
FluTrackers have posted a report originating from the Ningbo evening news in China stating that more markets in Zhejiang province, in the regions below, have been closed for cleaning and disinfection in an attempt to bring the Province's H7N9 outbreak under control...These regions have already suspended trading...Hangzhou city (which I noted here)Xiaoshan...
H7N9 Welcome to Week #50....
Chart of weekly cases from @influenza_bioLet's play duelling charts!! My colleague on Twitter, @influenza_bio, (whom you should follow if you are not already - he's got a knack for (a) getting across some nice flu-facts in a easy-to-understand way and (b) he rants - who doesn't like a ranter!?!...
Zhejiang province surpasses 100 avian influenza A(H7N9) cases...
As of tonight's 2 additions, my tally shows Zhejiang province on 101 H7N9 cases, 41.2% of all 245 human infections confirmed to date. The BBC recently noted 55 deaths which would result in a PFC of 22%. This continues the lower trend we've seen in the PFC for a while now; the result of a sharp increase in new cases but few deaths among those.In reality both...
The return of the H7N9 case chart timeline...
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...
