H7N9 now in SOUTH CHINA – update also in HUNAN – Right now, 18 percent of the cases in China have ended in death!!

H7N9 bird flu spreads to southern China
SHANGHAI – China’s deadly outbreak of H7N9 bird flu has spread to a province in the country’s south, the government said on Friday, marking the second announcement in two days of a case in a new location.
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A visiting team from the World Health Organization (WHO), which wrapped up a week-long visit to China on Wednesday, said there had been no human-to-human transmission, but warned H7N9 was “one of the most lethal” influenza viruses seen so far.
Chinese health officials have acknowledged so-called “family clusters”, where members of a single family have become infected, but have declined to call it human-to-human transmission.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/h7n9-bird-flu-spreads-to-southern-china/655000.html
China reports new bird flu case in Hunan province
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/27/us-birdflu-china-idUSBRE93L0EF20130427
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Huang Li-min (黃立民), chief physician at the National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, yesterday said according to Hong Kong’s latest research, the fatality rate of H7N9 influenza is higher than SARS.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2013/04/27/377124/Expert-warns.htm
China’s state-run Xinhua news agency yesterday reported two new human infection cases in Jiangxi and Fujian, the first in both provinces, bringing the total number of cases in China to 113.

http://www.todayonline.com/chinaindia/china/h7n9-transmitted-humans-chickens-chinese-scientists
UPDATED:Based on international research, the incubation time of the H7N9 avian influenza has been increased to 10 days from the previous seven days, a physician said
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday updated H7N9 avian influenza virus testing directives for hospitals following the first confirmed H7N9 infection in Taiwan, whose throat swab samples tested negative twice for the virus before the infection was finally confirmed via sputum specimentesting.
CDC Director-General Chang Feng-yee (張峰義) said the center had to undertake genome sequencing of the virus before making the confirmed case public and it is incorrect to say that throat swab testing is “ineffective.”
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2013/04/27/2003560818
Right now, 18 percent of the cases in China have ended in death. While this is still less deadly than the previous avian flu outbreak in China six years ago – the H5N1 bird flu virus eventually killed more than 300 people after spreading from China to other countries in 2006 – the death rate for this new Chinese bird flu epidemic is more than triple the mortality rate of tuberculosis in China today.
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/at-the-edge/2013/04/26/its-time-to-worry-about-the-new-chinese-bird-flu
This new strain is, in fact, a mixture of three different types of bird flu variants and “seems to have been quietly spreading in chickens without anyone knowing about it,” he said. This has likely been going on for at least two years.

tandym