Via CIDRAP, Lisa Schnirring writes: China reports 4 more H7N9 infections, 1 fatal. Excerpt:
With China celebrating its Lunar New Year holiday today, new reports of H7N9 avian flu cases slowed, with only one province reporting cases, four of them, along with one death.
Lunar New Year holiday celebrations extend into next week, and health officials have said they expect to see more H7N9 cases, as families gather and live-poultry transport and sales escalate. The resurgence in H7N9 cases has already pushed the case total in the second wave higher than that in the first.
In other developments, the World Health Organization (WHO) provided another update on the latest reports it has received from China and updated background documents with the latest information about the disease.
Four new cases, one fatal
The FluTrackers infectious disease news message board today noted that Guangdong province reported four new cases, in a 28-year-old man who is in critical condition, an 82-year-old man who is in critical condition, a 59-year-old man who died from his infection, and an 81-year-old woman who is in stable condition.
The new cases edge the number of H7N9 infections to 277, according to FluTrackers’ running total. The additional fatality raises the outbreak’s unofficial death count to 61.
In addition today, the WHO provided new details about six lab-confirmed cases, one of them fatal, based on reports from Chinese and Hong Kong health officials that it received on Jan 29. The five patients from the mainland are from Zhejiang (3), Fujian (1), and Guangdong provinces (1).
Patient ages range from 2 to 63 years. Four of them are hospitalized in critical or serious condition. Four had been exposed to poultry or a live-poultry market before getting sick.
The 2-year-old is a boy from Fujian province and is hospitalized with a mild infection. His family slaughters and sells ducks, according to the WHO report.
