H7N9 numbers....no-one agrees...

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H7N9 virus in humans in China: just how big is this?

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H7N9 in humans - biggest ever season in humans - most poorly reported as well

UPDATE: No.1 20FEB2017

Below is the best I can do to plot avian influenza H7N9) virus cases in humans against month.

And just to be clear - it's a very big underestimation. WHO is reporting 1,222 cases in humans [3] - but patchy public data exist for about 1,000.

Click on image to enlarge.
NOTE: This is a big underestimate as it only includes cases
with public detail available to identify them. There are 
approximately 200 cases missing. 

Ideally the charts above woudl be based on the month that illness onset occurred - when each person became ill. But those details just are not publicly forthcoming from China's massive human and animal influenza surveillance and testing system. 

I'm sure the data are to hand internally, and they may be on hand at the World Health Organization (WHO) - but you wouldn't know it by looking for them publicly. 

The WHO used to be helpful with providing H7N9 data but it seems their latest efforts to provide more detail on MERS cases has exhausted them.

Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection (CHP) has been valiantly chipping away, but they also fail to provide sufficient detail to link cases with media or other reports. What they do provide are summary totals.

As for fatal outcomes from H7N9 infection - forget understanding who dies when and why. Those numbers have been frankly a pathetic mess for four years.

This week marked the fourth anniversary of our knowledge of H7N9 in humans - the first case became ill February 18th 2013 in as part of a Shanghai family cluster. Since then we've seen less and less detail on cases. And by "detail" I don't mean their names and addresses - just case age, sex, date of illness onset/hospitalization/death, linkage between case and death, poultry or human contact and place infection was likely acquired. Basic and standard stuff.

Meanwhile the mainstream media report every bolus of data that are dumped as if these were new cases and deaths that have just occurred. In reality, the huge January spike below may include many cases and deaths from a month or more earlier. It may mis many cases that have not been detected.

We're definitely having a huge H7N9 season in 2016/17 (n=176 human cases using public case data, but over 400 based on announced totals[3]). We had bigger detailed tallies in 2014 (n=326) and 2015 (n=220), but never a season as big as these totals make it out to be now. 

This is the largest H7N9 season ever recorded.

In media interviews over the past weeks, I've put the current season down to lethargy in closing live bird markets as cases and deaths have mounted. The response has been faster in previous years.[1,2] Poultry is a big deal in China.[2] Perhaps the poultry lobby has won out over human life this season. 

References...

1. http://virologydownunder.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/guangdong-sees-sense-among-feathers.html
2. http://virologydownunder.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/live-bird-market-closures-continue.html
3.  http://www.who.int/csr/don/20-february-2017-ah7n9-china/en/

 Updates...

1. Amended to indicate the scale of the case numbers, based on totals, not individual detailed cases, in the 2016/17 seasons. The largest season of H7N9 in humans...on record.

Science needs to talk more but I know many scientists who don't...

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H7N9 is having a big season...Happy New Year!

My how things can change in 5 weeks. 

If you look back a few posts you'll see that in late December, the data suggested avian influenza A(H7N9) virus was having a wimpy season - its slowest to date. 

Well, thanks to 100+ cases in China which have been bulk reported by the ever vigilant Hong Kong Centre for Heath Protection (CHP) - and captured and listed by FluTrackers - the situation has changed dramatically. 

Never take your eye off influenza virus - especially during its favourite season. And this season is a particularly active one for avian influenza all over the world.[4]

H7N9 is an avian influenza virus (hence the  "bird flu" moniker) that to date has been localised to China - especially but not exclusively to its eastern coast provinces - and it's a flu virus that doesn't make the birds it infects noticeably sick. 

These "low pathogenic" influenza viruses can sneak silently through poultry flocks because infections are mild - they don't cause infected birds to get sick or die. 

Data on human infections with avian influenza A(H7N9) virus. Data from [1]
Click on image to enlarge.

The H5 avian influenza viruses on the other hand - H5N1, H5N8, H5N5 or H5N6 for example - are called "high pathogenicity" avian influenza viruses because they kill off infected birds. Thankfully, H5N1 is the only H5 avian influenza that has caused a sizable number of human infections. H5N6 is gaining some ground though. The other H5s do not reportedly cause much impact in humans. Whether this is because they are not found or not sought in humans who have had contact with infected animals is unclear.

Disease in an H5-infected flock can serve as a sentinel for an outbreak of the virus. 

With H7N9 though, it's humans falling ill that set of the alarm that H7N9 (or another influenza virus) is in the house...or the market. And there are a sizable number of deaths among those - often male - who already have some sort of underlying illness and then acquire an H7N9 infection.

Most human cases of H7N9 result from contact with a "wet" market, also called a live bird market (LBM) in which chickens and ducks can be chosen, killed and dressed to provide a super-fresh meal. These tasty treats are especially in demand around this time of year as Chinese New Year is upon us. 


Chinese New Year is also a time when we observe the largest seasonal migration of humanity in the world. [2] Loved ones travel across a massive country to visit each other, share stories, traditions, meals - and the occasional respiratory virus like influenza. 

From [3].

In the coming weeks, as the gatherings disperse, it will be very interesting to see whether the current spike in human H7N9 infections is reflected by a steep rise in human cases acquired during the New Year celebrations - some of which include contact (direct or indirect) with infected poultry in backyard farms or LBMs.

Stay tuned. And don't forget to wash your hands often and cough/sneeze into the crook of your elbow.

References...

1. http://virologydownunder.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/influenza-ah7n9-virus-detection-numbers.html
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/world/asia/chinese-new-year-home-lunar.html?_r=0
3. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/covercough.htm
4. http://news.trust.org/item/20170126150919-05z2c/

WHO sets the table....and lays it with MERS-CoV details

This just made my day. A Tweet from scientist and program manager at the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Embarek. In the tweet he noted that Middle East Respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) data will now be presented by WHO in an easy-to-access Mirosoft Excel table...

An example is in this latest update.[1]

Excerpt of new MERS-CoV data from [1]

This will make data collection for scientists, public health teams and researchers looking to follow what's happening with this camel-borne virus as it spills over to humans so much easier. I've been painstakingly entering data from several sources since 2013 - and this will really streamline the process.

Thanks to those at the WHO for making this happen.

Now, could you please also do this for all the other pathogens you keep track of....different influenza viruses (H7N9, H5N6, H5N1), zika virus, dengue virus, yellow fever virus....and make it retrospective....

References...

1. http://www.who.int/csr/don/26-january-2017-mers-saudi-arabia/en/

Snapdate: influenza H7N9 cases in humans, by the numbers...

An updated chart.
[SNAPDATE'S are snap updates that don't have lots of detail and chat...although they almost always end up having lots of chat!]

A summary of the monthly, weekly and daily data graphing human avian influenza A(H7N9) virus infections in humans reported from the hotzone, China.

Daily weekly and monthly H7N9 numbers, taken from the
FluTrackers curated line list [1] and the World Health
Organization disease outbreak news reports.
Click on image to enlarge.

References...

1. http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=202713
2. http://www.who.int/csr/don/en/

H7N9:2016 has been the most quiet year to date...

Influenza A(H7N9) virus, or 'H7N9', has had a quiet year when compared to past outbreaks.

All human cases to date have been linked to China. The majority of human cases have had some link with poultry - chickens or ducks - although we do hear of human-to-human transmission, this seems to be limited. H7N9 has been found in poultry from backyard farms and in live poultry markets (LPMs) in China - sometimes in the company of other influenza viruses, like H9N2.[1]

Cases and deaths each month over the 4 years we have known
about human cases of H7N9 infection.
Click on image to enlarge.

Despite the slow year,the 2016 graph above shows the usual December uptick in human cases. It will be what happens next that matters. Will be see a big January surge as in 2014, or a later Feb-April surge as in 2013 and 2015? Will live LPMs be quickly closed, disinfected, the animals destroyed and any outbreaks in 2017 squashed or will they remain open allowing more human cases as the virus spreads among market animals?

Time, and testing data - which China generates lots of but does not seem to enjoy publicly reporting - will tell.

In 2016 - 2 new regions were added for the first time - Tianjin municipality and Liaoning province - both in the north-eastern coastal region of China. 

In 2013, no sustained human-to-human transmission had been reported [2] - this remains true up until today.

References...

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4911810/pdf/nihms749408.pdf
2. http://www.nature.com/news/mapping-the-h7n9-avian-flu-outbreaks-1.12863

Happy Festive Season to all who read this....

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Get off my lawn you 2016....!