A new research provides the strongest evidence so far that the H7N9 virus, known as bird flu which affects only birds and its kind, may also be transmitted between humans.
James Rudge and Richard Coker of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, together with other experts commenting on the research said, while it did not essentially mean H7N9 is closer to be the next flu pandemic, it reminds everyone to be very vigilant.
The World Health Organization (WHO) data reported that since the new virus emerged in February, they have recorded about 133 cases with 43 fatalities in Taiwan and China.
Most of the patients infected have had visited live poultry markets or had a close contact with live poultry in seven to 10 days before getting sick.
Chang-jun Bao of the Jiangsu Province Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, who led the research, studied a family cluster of two H7N9 patients in Eastern China in March 2013, a father and his daughter.
The father, who is the first index, is a 60-year old man who had regularly visited a live poultry market got sick five to six days after his last visit.
He was then hospitalized on March 11. His condition worsened four days after and was brought to an intensive care unit. Unfortunately, he died of multiple organ failure on May 4.
The second index is the deceased patient’s daughter who is 32 years old and had no known exposure to live poultry. However, she performed bedside care to his ill father during his admission in the hospital.
Six days after her last contact with her father, she displayed symptoms and got admitted on March 24. Four days later, she was transferred to the ICU and just like her father. She also died of multiple organ failure on April 24. Looking at this trend, the transmission may happen in less than a week and may lead to complications in a month or two.
The researchers concluded that the virus was transferred directly from the father to the daughter because the strains of the virus taken from the patients were found to be genetically identical after testing.
However, the researchers admitted that they will need to do further research to establish that the H7N9 virus can actually be transmitted.
This research was published in the Aug. 6 issue of the British Medical Journal.
