Chinese
health authorities today reported two more novel H7N9 infections from
different parts of the country, including in a 3-year-old boy with mild
illness who is hospitalized, according to media reports and an early
notification from the World Health Organization (WHO).
The cases
are the third and fourth to be reported since the middle of October and
would boost China's number of H7N9 infections to 139, which includes 45
deaths.
First case in Guangdong
The boy is hospitalized in
Dongguan City in southern China's Guangdong province, where he is in
stable condition, Xinhua, China's state news agency reported today. His
infection was detected during routine hospital monitoring of flulike
cases.
Donnguan is a large industrial city that borders Guangzhou,
the provincial capital. The youngster's illness is Guangdong's second
H7N9 case. The province's first case was reported in early August,
months after the virus was detected in poultry markets there.
Hong
Kong's Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said in a statement that the
boy doesn't have a fever and his flu-like symptoms are minor. All seven
of the boy's close contacts who were under close observation tested
negative for the virus, though three had flu-like symptoms.
Second case in Zhejiang
Very
few details were available about the second case-patient, who is from
Zhejiang province. The first news of the detection came from WHO Twitter
posts, which said China had notified it of two new lab-confirmed H7N9
cases in Guangdong and Zhejiang.
Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman,
said in separate Twitter posts that the two H7N9 cases were reported
from different parts of China on the same day. "Winter is starting," he
said.
In October Zhejiang province, located roughly 800 miles
northeast of Guangdong, reported two H7N9 cases, in a 35-year-old man
who was hospitalized in critical condition and in a 67-year-old farmer
who had contact with live poultry and was also listed in critical
condition.
Zhejiang is the Chinese province with the most H7N9 cases, with 49 infections and 11 deaths reported so far.
Wave of infections coming?
When
the H7N9 virus was first detected China in March, the number of cases
soared, then dropped sharply in May, with only two additional cases
reported over the summer. Global health officials said poultry-market
closures probably played a role in the declining number of cases, and
there was a chance that the virus could burn itself out.
They
said, however, that they expected sporadic cases to continue. And they
warned that although flu viruses are unpredictable, there was a chance
that the number of cases could start rising again as the Northern
Hemisphere's weather cools, a pattern seen with other avian influenza
viruses such as H5N1.
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