Rising number of bird flu deaths in China

Number of deaths from H7N9 bird flu infections continued to rise

04/22/2013

In China, the number of reported deaths as a result of bird flu infection increased further over the weekend. "Until 4 o'clock on Sunday, China confirmed six new cases of H7N9 avian influenza in humans," said the Chinese news agency Xinhua. More than 100 people in China have already been proven to be infected with H7N9, around one in five did not survive the infection.

Citing the daily updated numbers of the "National Health and Family Planning Commission" in China, the news agency reports now 102 officially registered infections with the previously not pathogen human H7N9. A total of 20 people died from the consequences of the infection. While this increases the concern about the spread of the pathogen and a possible possible transmission from person to person, there is also some good news. Twelve of the infected patients have apparently survived the illness and have already been released from the clinics, including the seven-year-old girl who had the first bird flu test in Beijing. After six days in hospital, the girl had no more bird flu symptoms and the blood tests said that the seven-year-old has successfully survived the disease, according to the news agency "Xinhua". The tests for the H7N9 virus in the past three days have all been negative.

Since the Chinese authorities reported the first deaths from an infection with the bird flu virus H7N9 at the end of March, the number of illnesses has slowly but steadily increased. Several unpleasant or questionable findings were made. The initially suspected local border on Shanghai and the surrounding provinces had to be revised in light of the first infections in Beijing. Also, the assumed route of infection via direct contact with live poultry has not been confirmed. Because here was revealed in the course of further investigations that only about 40 percent of those infected actually had contact with poultry. Thus, the national and international experts are currently still a mystery regarding the origin and transmission of H7N9 viruses. Scientists of the World Health Organization (WHO) work together with the local Chinese authorities to obtain further findings as soon as possible (fp)

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Picture: Aka