New bird flu strand could be linked to dead pigs in Shanghai river

WantChinaTimes.com ^ | 04/01/13 | Staff

[Brian Kopp DPM]

New bird flu strand could be linked to dead pigs in Shanghai river: expert

• Staff Reporter
• 2013-04-01
• 15:37 (GMT+8)

A worker cleaning up dead pigs out of the river. (Photo/Xinhua)

The new strand of the bird flu that has already killed two people and left another critically ill in eastern China could be linked to the thousands of dead pigs found floating in a Shanghai river last month, according to a Hong Kong infectious disease expert.

China's Ministry of Health and the National Health and Family Planning Commission announced on Sunday the world's first reported cases of the H7N9 virus, a new subtype of the avian influenza. The virus has already killed two men, aged 87 and 27, from Shanghai, while a 35-year-old woman from Anhui province remains in critical condition.

Health authorities said there is currently insufficient data to suggest that the new strand could spread among humans, especially as 88 close contacts of the three had tested negative for the virus. As of now there is no vaccine available.

Ho Pak-leung, director of the Infectious Disease Center at the University of Hong Kong, told reporters that the H7N9 cases could be related to the 10,000-plus pig carcasses that were pulled out of Shanghai's Huangpu River since early March. Local media reports attributed the mass dumping to a swine epidemic earlier in the year.

While there is no concrete evidence to suggest a definitive link between the two, the fact that the 27-year-old victim was a pork seller means health departments should collect samples of the dead pigs to see if they have been affected by the same virus, Ho said.

The previous outbreak of the highly pathogenic bird flu that first struck China in 2003 belonged to the H5 subtype, Ho said. This time the human infection appears to be different and suggests that this strand of the avian influenza might be evolving.

Ho is not the only person to draw a link between the new bird flu and the pig carcasses. Yuen Kwok-yung, a professor in the microbiology department at the University of Hong Kong, told reporters that while the H7N9 subtype should be low pathogenic, the virus could have mutated after infecting the pigs. However, Yuen urged the public not to panic until all necessary tests have been carried out.

Many of China's internet users have also drawn a direct relationship between the flu and the pigs, with some saying it is obvious that birds passed the virus to pigs, which were then consumed by humans.

Huang Li-min, the director of infection in children at National Taiwan University Hospital, said the recent deaths in China are not a coincidence and that the fatality rate could be high if the virus turns out to be highly pathogenic. The virus does not necessarily have to go from bird to pig to human; it is possible that the virus could be transmitted directly from birds to humans, Huang said, adding that at this stage, the disease should be controllable as long as it is not spread from human to human.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Is This a Pandemic Being Born?

BY LAURIE GARRETT | APRIL 1, 2013

China's mysterious pig, duck, and people deaths could be connected. And that should worry us.

On March 25, Chinese authorities seized manufactured pork buns that were found to be made from Zhejiang pigs that had died of the mysterious ailment. The possibly contaminated pork was in the Chinese food supply. By the end of March, at least 20,000 pig carcasses and tens of thousands of ducks and swans had washed upon riverbanks that stretch from the Lake Qinghai area all the way to the East China Sea -- a distance roughly equivalent to the span between Miami and Boston. Nobody knows how many more thousands of birds and pigs have died, but gone uncounted as farmers buried or burned the carcasses to avoid reprimands from authorities.
While environmental clean-up and agricultural authorities scrambled to remove the unsightly corpses and provide the anxious public with less-than-believable explanations for their demise, a seemingly separate human drama was unfolding. On Feb. 19, a man identified by Xinhua, China's state news agency, only as Li, an 87-year old retiree, was hospitalized in Shanghai with severe respiratory distress and pneumonia. On March 4, Li went into severe cardio-respiratory failure and succumbed.
On Feb. 27, a man identified only as Wu, a 27-year-old butcher or meat processor, fell ill with respiratory distress, was hospitalized, and died on March 10. The day Wu succumbed a third individual, a 35-year-old woman identified as Han, was hospitalized in the city of Nanjing, though she came from distant Chuzhou City, in Anhui province, about 300 miles northwest of Shanghai. Han is reportedly in critical condition, in intensive care. To date, no connection between the three individuals has been found.
The elderly Li may have been part of a family cluster of illness, as his 55-year old son died of pneumonia in March, and another 67-year-old son suffered respiratory distress, but has survived.
On March 31 -- Easter in the United States -- China's newly created National Health and Family Planning Commission (which includes the former Ministry of Health) announced that 87-year-old Li, Wu, and Han all were infected with a form of influenza denoted as H7N9 -- a type of flu never previously known to infect human beings. The commission insisted that Li's two sons (one dead, the other a survivor) were not infected with the flu virus -- their ailments were reportedly coincidental, though they occurred at the same time as the elder Li's demise.
So much for the backstory: What is going on?

[vpintheak]

Nah! Rotting carcass’ in water never caused any problems!

[bgill]

Yet they keep telling us that diseases can’t jump species - Yes, it can! No, it can’t! Yes, it can! Yes, it can! Yes, it can!!!

I’ve noticed that the pictures of the pigs they’ve been showing over the past few weeks have been small pigs. Either they on’t have the large breeds we do here or the disease is striking younger ones.

[Boogieman]

Yeah, it’s not too surprising that they still have outbreaks of the bubonic plague there.

[trisham]

Aren't these influenzas that combine bird flu with mammals (I'm not a scientist, clearly) far more dangerous to humans than the typical influenzas?

For all those who may be taking this lightly, we shouldn't discount the seriousness of this virus simply because we are seeing it so soon in its life. The speed of modern communication has somewhat unfortunately caused many of us to be cynical.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Yes, this new one has already picked up genetic segments, apparently from exposure in pigs, that makes it better at surviving and reproducing in mammalian (including human) respiratory tracts. They’ve never seen these gene segments in this type of avian flu outbreak in humans.

[trisham]

Yes, this new one has already picked up genetic segments, apparently from exposure in pigs, that makes it better at surviving and reproducing in mammalian (including human) respiratory tracts. They’ve never seen these gene segments in this type of avian flu outbreak in humans.

*****************************

I'm very concerned about this outbreak. In the past, I've not been apprehensive, but this strain may be the one that puts all previous nonchalance to rest.

[LucyT]

China confirms 4 more cases of H7N9 bird flu

FOUR people in eastern Jiangsu Province have been confirmed as being infected with the lesser-known H7N9 bird flu, bringing the total number of infections in the country to seven.

The four, from four cities in Jiangsu, are in a critical condition and under emergency treatment, the provincial health bureau said in a statement yesterday.

The four were confirmed as having H7N9 avian influenza by an expert team summoned by the provincial health bureau, based on clinical observations, laboratory tests and epidemiological surveys, the statement said.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/nsp/National/2013/04/03/China%2Bconfirms%2B4%2Bmore%2Bcases%2Bof%2BH7N9%2Bbird%2Bflu/

[Brian Kopp DPM]

H7N9 Chinese Avian Flu Virus May Have Adapted To Mammals

Helen Branswell, The Canadian Press
04/02/2013 8:57 pm EDT

Excerpt:

The new flu virus that has exploded onto the global radar is already showing signs that it is adapting to mammals, suggesting what was once a bird virus is now probably spreading in a mammalian host, an influenza expert said Tuesday.

And while it's not clear what that mammalian host is, the two most obvious choices are pigs or humans, said Dr. Richard Webby, head of the World Health Organization's influenza collaborating centre at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

"I think that's what's concerning about this ...This thing doesn't any longer look like a poultry virus," Webby, a swine flu expert, said in an interview.

"It really looks to me like it's adapted in a mammalian host somewhere."

[bgill]

This thing doesn't any longer look like a poultry virus," Webby, a swine flu expert, said in an interview. "It really looks to me like it's adapted in a mammalian host somewhere."

Not good. Just wait until it hops on an airplane headed to LA.

[neverdem]

Thanks for the ping.

[Smokin' Joe]

Ping! (Thanks Dr. Brian Kopp!)

[penelopesire]

Yikes! My husband’s brother was in China on business and saw all the pigs floating in river. What a commie hell hole.

[MARTIAL MONK]

Ho Hum

That's easy for you to say.

We all died of this last year.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

For a little clarity, the “H7” in its nomenclature stands for “Hemagglutinin (HA) type 7”. There are at least 17 different HA antigens, numbered 1-17.

The first three hemagglutinins, H1, H2, and H3, are found in easily transmissible among people, human influenza viruses.

H1N1 was the type of flu that caused the Spanish Flu in 1918, killing millions around the world. But iterations of H1N1 since have been limited by “near immunity” in most people. The recent exception being the Ukraine H1N1 flu epidemic, which traumatized that region, with some of the dead having lungs so damaged they looked black and burned.

However, the flu with the most potential for an epidemic the likes of which has never been seen on Earth, the potential “thermonuclear bomb” of influenza, is H5N1.

A highly pathogenic avian flu virus of H5N1 type has been found to infect humans at a low rate. It has been reported that single amino acid changes in this avian virus strain’s type H5 hemagglutinin have been found in human patients that “can significantly alter receptor specificity of avian H5N1 viruses, providing them with an ability to bind to receptors optimal for human influenza viruses”.

And no one has even limited immunity to H5N1. There is no vaccine for it.

Which brings us to the other side of the equation, the “N” factor, which stands for “Neuraminidase”. There are at least 200 known kinds, the first four of which (N1-N4) have been around so long that parts of them have been integrated into the human genome. There are five other “N” factor subtypes, but only N1 and N2 are commonly found in people.

Put simply, the “H” factor is how the virus enters host cells, and after reproducing inside them and killing the cell, the “N” factor is how they get out of the dead cell before it is destroyed by the body.

All anti-viral drugs are designed to inhibit the “N” factor, to keep the virus trapped inside the cell until it is destroyed along with them.

While it is much less likely to become incredibly transmissible between humans, yet still retain lethality, like H5N1, H7N9 does have possibilities, perhaps by swapping genetic information with other influenza viruses.

[txhurl]

Let’s panic next Tuesday. I have a rough week cut out for me.

[null and void]

Yeah, it’s not too surprising that they still have outbreaks of the bubonic plague there.

We have it in the western US as well.

[Boogieman]

“We have it in the western US as well.”

Well, I’m gonna blame that on rodents from Mexico illegally immigr... I mean “seeking a better life”.

[null and void]

Well, I’m gonna blame that on rodents from Mexico illegally immigr... I mean “seeking a better life”.

Credit where credit is due:

In the 1850's there was a Plague outbreak in San Fransisco's Chinatown.

It was detected early on by a local physician, who promptly reported it to City Hall, and recommended a rat catching program, quarantine, and general clean up of the area.

The city fathers refused to acknowledge that there was Plague in their fair city. It festered until the problem could no longer be ignored, and finally a cleanup of Chinatown was instituted.

But by then Plague had spread from the rats to the ground squirrel population. Now one can be exposed to the Plague anywhere in the western US.

Feel free to draw parallels to any more recent plagues...

[Boogieman]

Ah, that makes sense. If it was in the rat population, well they can only survive in proximity to us, so we could control it. With squirrels, we’ve got no such luck. Good thing I don’t live out West, because I like to feed the squirrels, they’re my buds :)