Hong Kong Reports Sixth H7N9 Bird Flu Case - Reigniting Fears That The Virus Could Mutate And Becoming Transmissible Between Humans, Triggering A Pandemic!

March 05, 2014 - HONG KONG - Hong Kong confirmed Tuesday a new human case of the deadly H7N9 avian flu found in an 18-month-old girl, the sixth case to be discovered in the city.

 Hong Kong reports sixth H7N9 bird flu case. AFP

Fears over avian flu have grown following the deaths of three men from the H7N9 strain in Hong Kong since December last year, all of whom had recently returned from mainland China. 

The child, who had also recently visited the mainland, was hospitalised on February 28 after developing a fever and was treated in an isolation ward, the city's health department said in a statement. 

She was sent home "in a stable condition" on Monday but routine laboratory test results later showed positive for the virus, the statement said. 

The girl is now in isolation in another hospital undergoing tests, but has no fever or symptoms.

She had travelled to the neighbouring Chinese province of Guangdong for three weeks in February, the health department said, where her mother had taken her to a wet market -- though they did not buy poultry.

Family members and patients from the first hospital that admitted the child will be taken in for testing and observation, the statement said. 

Others who may have had contact with the girl will be "put under medical surveillance", it added. 

A total of 31 people died from H7N9 bird flu in mainland China in January, the government said, making it by far the worst month of the outbreak. There were a total of 127 confirmed human H7N9 cases that month, according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission. 

The outbreak, which first emerged on the mainland in February 2013, has reignited fears that a bird flu virus could mutate to become easily transmissible between people, threatening to trigger a pandemic. 

Hong Kong slaughtered 20,000 chickens in January after the virus was found in poultry imported from Guangdong. 

Officials said last month that they were extending for four months a ban on live poultry imports from mainland China to guard against the disease. 

Hong Kong is particularly alert to the spread of viruses after an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) swept through the city in 2003, killing 299 people and infecting around 1,800.

Chinese Scientists Say H7N9 Virus Mutating 8 Times Faster Than Normal, Faster Than Any Virus Except HIV

  

Dr He Jiankui, an associate professor at South University of Science and Technology of China, said yesterday that the authorities should be alarmed by the results of their research and step up monitoring and control efforts to prevent a possible pandemic.

With genetic code of the virus obtained from mainland authorities, the team scrutinised haemagglutinin, a protein that plays a crucial rule in the process of infection. The protein binds the virus to an animal cell, such as respiratory cells in humans, and bores a hole in the cell's membrane to allow entry by the virus. 

The researchers found dramatic mutation of haemagglutinin in one of the four flu strains released for study by the central government. Nine of the protein's 560 amino acids had changed. In a typical flu virus, only one or two amino acids could change in such a short period of time, he said. 

"It happened in just one or two weeks. The speed may not have caught up with the HIV, but it's quite unusual for a flu." 

24 Cases, 7 Deaths

First few days is was 1 new infection a day, then is was 2 a day, then 3 now its 4. Projected infected by day 20 - 100,000.  Better put on your pandemic hats, slip Stephen King's 'The Stand' in your DVD player and buckle your seat belt.  -Mort