Taiwan confirmed an H7N9 bird flu infection in a Taiwanese traveler from China, demonstrating the risk of the killer virus entering cities outside the mainland.
A 53-year-old man tested positive for the latest strain of avian flu after a trip to the eastern city of Suzhou, returning to Taiwan via Shanghai, the island’s Centers for Disease Control said today in a statement. The patient didn’t come into contact with birds and poultry, and is in critical condition at an unspecific medical facility, Minister of Health Chiu Wen-ta said at a briefing today.
Taiwan's Center for Disease Control staff stand at the entrance of Sungshan Airport in Taipei. Photographer: Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty Images
There’s no evidence that H7N9 is easily transmitted among people, the World Health Organization says, and the virus doesn’t appear to make birds sick, making it difficult to detect in poultry flocks. Photographer: Lam Yik Fei/Bloomberg
The first discovery of the virus outside China may lead to increased scrutiny on travelers into and out of China, where the new strain was discovered in March. Taiwan’s largest trade partner is battling to control the its spread, which so far has killed 22, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from reports released by the national and local governments, and the World Health Organization.
“I think that with any new influenza virus that emerges, the concern is that it could genetically mutate to become easily transmissible between human beings,” Raina MacIntyre, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of New South Wales said in an interview before the announcement of Taiwan’s confirmed case. “With all past pandemics and even with SARS, they were spread around the world by travel.”
There’s no evidence that H7N9 is easily transmitted among people, the World Health Organization says, and the virus doesn’t appear to make birds sick, making it difficult to detect in poultry flocks. The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus, which killed more than 770 worldwide, arrived in Taiwan from China in February 2003 before infecting 346 people locally.
“Given how infectious diseases are, and how diseases move around the world now, I don’t think it’ll be so surprising if we find a case somewhere else,” Keiji Fukuda, assistant director general of the WHO said in Beijing before today’s announcement in Taipei.
*Article first appeared on http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-24/taiwan-finds-first-bird-flu-inf...