Pandemic Potential Increases as H7N9 Spreads to Hong Kong at the Start of Regular Flu Season

Chris Carrington

An Indonesian resident in Hong Kong has become the island's first H7N9 bird flu victim. The woman who is 36 years old is in isolation and is in a critical condition.

She recently traveled to Shenzhen on the mainland and had contact with live poultry.

The World Health Organization has said that although:

There is no evidence of sustained human to human transmission, H7N9 is an unusually dangerous virus.

Hong Kong's food and health secretary Dr. KO Wing-man said the woman

…has a history of travelling to Shenzhen, buying a chicken, slaughtering and eating the chicken. 

She is now in critical condition at Queen Mary Hospital, four people in close contact with her were showing signs of flu-like symptoms.

H7N9 was first identified in April and has sickened 139 people since then, killing 45 of them. Scientists fear that the virus will have much more effect this winter when influenza outbreaks are far more common.

First Case of H7N9 Human To Human Transmission Reported; Scientists Warn Of Pandemic Potential

Chris Carrington

The British Medical Journal is reporting today that a 32-year-old woman became infected with H7N9, while caring for her father. Both have since died. This is the first confirmed case of human to human transmission of the disease.

Prior to this case, there was no evidence to confirm contact spread, and it was thought to be caught only from contact with diseased birds. So far there have been 133 cases of H7N9 and 43 deaths, all of them in Eastern China.

Tests have shown that the strain of virus taken from the father and daughter were genetically almost identical, and the family has confirmed that the woman had no contact with poultry at all in the six weeks before she fell ill.

It's Airborne: Human Transmission of Deadly H7N9 Virus Now Confirmed

Mac Slavo

In April of this year researchers studying the H7N9 bird flu virus in China advised global governments to get prepared for the worst-case scenario. According to the World Health Organization, H7N9 is one the most lethal influenza strains ever identified because it mutates eight times faster than a normal flu virus, and, according to official records, has a death-to-infection ratio of about 25%.

It was initially believed that the virus could only be transmitted to humans who have had direct contact with poultry. After 36 H7N9 deaths and 131 of infections officially reported since the virus was first identified, the worst-case scenario that many feared may now be on the horizon.

The Sun China Morning Post is reporting that researchers have confirmed that, not only can the virus be transmitted from one human to another, but it has gone airborne.