Via the Times Colonist, Helen Branswell of The Canadian Press writes: Plane diverts to Edmonton with sick patient; tests show man had H7 flu. Excerpt:
The Public Health Agency of Canada says an American man who ended up in an Edmonton hospital tested positive for previous infection with an H7 influenza virus.
Canada's acting chief public health officer says the man is not currently ill with flu and therefore is not contagious.
Dr. Gregory Taylor says, though, that the event is a reminder that viruses like the new H7N9 bird flu are only a plane ride away.
The blood test used to diagnose the previous infection cannot determine the neuraminadase or N component of the virus with which the man was infected.
But the infectious diseases specialist who treated him in Edmonton was on the lookout for H7N9 flu, which has infected 132 people in China this spring, killing at least 39 of them.
The man had travelled in southern China in late May, though apparently not in a part of the country where human infections with H7N9 flu were recorded.
"Could he have been infected with H7N9? Maybe. We don't know for sure," Taylor says.
But he notes Canada has been on heightened surveillance for the new virus and this case suggests the system is working.
"It's a small world and these plane rides are short," Taylor says.
The unidentified man, described as elderly, has been travelling extensively in recent weeks.
Taylor says he did not know where the man was from in the United States.
He travelled to China and from there to Singapore and India.Someone really needs to find this gentleman and have a long talk with him.
