Posted on 04/24/2013 2:45:02 PM PDT by neverdem
Yes.
Flu is my profession. SO FAR, there is no real evidence of sustained human transmission (to other humans) of H7N9. There IS evidence from blood tests of extensive bird-to-human transmission of H7 and H9 strains, in Europe and in Hong Kong, but these events have burned out early without causing pandemics.
It appears (YMMV) that the pig-adapted strains have a lower species barrier than the avian strains (as you would expect).
Public Health is underfunded and under-respected in the USA. Since 2001, an enormous emergency threat bureaucracy has come into existence.
It is only human for public health professionals to interpret early signs of a possible threat in a way that makes elected officials sit up and take notice - especially when FY14 budgets are being written.
And there is no downside for this behavior, whereas being wrong on the unconcerned side about something that becomes a disaster is professionally fatal.
Based on the behavior of novel human-adapted Influenza A strains, I believe and have told those I report to that if H7N9 was the "big one", we would have known by the end of last week.
Public Health is funny. 99% of the time, you need a Mr. Rogers type in the director's chair who looks forward to showing second-graders how to put on bandaids.. 1% of the time, you need a Patton who looks forward to shooting quarantine-evaders. It is very rare for these two types to be combined in one person..
I'm semi-relaxed about this event. Hopefully, I'm right.
WHO says new bird strain is “one of most lethal” flu viruses
I don’t know.
“He’s on third.”
—
Thanks for the laugh.Very funny.
.
The threat assessment of H7N9 isn’t to great yet, but it does have some troubling elements.
1) No obvious P2P transmission. However, chickens with the disease do not show dramatic symptoms. This means that its spread among chickens will be hard to stop, and undercooked chicken might be a vector for human infection.
2) Mortality is at typically high levels for a novel disease, but unlike H5N1 which has mysteriously maintained its 60% mortality, H7N9 is more like a typical killer flu at this point, so its worst case scenario with P2P is worldwide mortality in the tens of millions, not over a billion, like H5N1.
I expect that as it spreads further, mortality will start to decline to about typical influenza mortality levels (about 30k in the US annually). The declining curve will result in a “bad flu” like the Hong Kong flu (H3N2) of 1968-’69, that could lay out an adult for two weeks to a month. I met some victims of this, who for several days were flat on their backs, subsisting only on peanut butter on crackers brought by their young children. Full recovery took two or three months.
3) H7N9 has been effective at obtaining genetic material from three known avian flus. While that does make it easier to infect people, it also presents a possibility of greater immune system recognition because of this material.
Since I already take statins and Angiotensin-II receptor blockers I am interested in this:
"Reduction of Morbidity and Mortality by Statins, Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors, and Angiotensin Receptor Blockers in Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease". and Frost et al. below ^ Floyd J. Frost, Hans Petersen, Kristine Tollestrup, Betty Skipper (2007-04). [Influenza and COPD Mortality Protection as Pleiotropic, Dose-Dependent Effects of Statins "Influenza and COPD mortality protection as pleiotropic, dose-dependent effects of statins."] Check |url= scheme (help). Chest 131 (4): 1006–1012. doi:10.1378/chest.06-1997. PMID 17426203. (Open access)
Looks like the Tamiflu in the emergency kit isn't going to be effective against one of these new strains, unfortunately.
Last summer I passed through the Denver airport for connecting flights. Both times as I got off the plane I remarked that I felt like I was in a third world country.
Looks like the Tamiflu in the emergency kit isn’t going to be effective against one of these new strains, unfortunately.
Exactly right, steve86.
It would be stupid to dismiss this as “just another” flu strain.
Oh my, I did a slow motion double post (SMDP). My apologies...
You have mail.
thanks for the thoughtful post.
what do you think about the theory that the chinese method of agriculture, with pigs pooping into chicken coops whose run off feeds into duck ponds, has tightened the loop for virus resortment?
Great. Another killer flu scare. Didn’t we just have one of those a few years ago? People panicked in the streets,trying to get a scarce flu vaccine. And then it all turned out to be nothing.
I think that happened mainly in your mind. As I recall, there was general apathy and complacency and most of the U.S. influenza vaccine went unused and was discarded.
“As I recall, there was general apathy and complacency and most of the U.S. influenza vaccine went unused and was discarded. “
That did happen too, but only AFTER the vaccine became available AFTER the flu season was nearly over and it had become evident the big fright about H1N1 was all BS. Until then, the vaccine was being highly rationed to health professionals, the elderly, etc., and ordinary mortals were trying to figure out how to get it so they wouldn’t die from H1N1.
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