Discussion - Chinese researchers speculate that Influenza A(H7N9) could cause a severe pandemic

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Discussion - Chinese researchers speculate that Influenza A(H7N9) could cause a severe pandemic

It is all a numbers game. For a reassortment or recombination event you need a dual infection in the same cell. ............

We need to consider vaccinations as one possibility toward this end. Many of the H5N1 vaccinations are "live", which I assume could lead to a dual infection. While the H7 and H9 vaccines are all listed as "killed", there have been cases of unintended consequences resulting in live vaccines or lab escapes (e.g., S. Korea H1N1 - 1918-like).

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[NS1]

Re: Discussion - Chinese researchers speculate that Influenza A(H7N9) could cause a severe pandemic

Welcome Bugonwindshield.

All very pertinent observations and ones some of us have considered as well. Sharon and I have discussed the distinct possibility of multiple cases of infections prior to those published.

The H7N9 database is extremely limited and we have repeatedly called for freezers to be opened. Let's watch for data from all the reported thawing. Even with the small population of available sequences, a very clear pattern of viral development is trackable. At least 4 intermediate steps are missing from the database during key HA development events.

Retrospective cases will always be found prior to the official start. All diseases begin and then are later discovered. That time gap is only understood if careful surveillance and sample handling has occurred. We may not see those qualifications met in China, but we will eventually see them in the United States if cases are ever announced.

The pH1N1 emergence is a case in point of retrospective findings. We have located genetic precursors to the pH1N1 in samples from 2008 and an exact match of our carefully designed Hemagglutinin reference in an isolate sampled January 2009 that was deposited only this past year.

 

[NS1]

Re: Discussion - Chinese researchers speculate that Influenza A(H7N9) could cause a severe pandemic

H7N1 or H7N2 could certainly cause a severe pandemic.

Genetic signals indicate that China, Spain, the UK and the US should be surveilling closely for H7N1 Re-Assortment followed with similarly probability by H7N2.

 

[Shannon Bennett]

Re: Discussion - Chinese researchers speculate that Influenza A(H7N9) could cause a severe pandemic

H7N1 *shudder

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: Discussion - Chinese researchers speculate that Influenza A(H7N9) could cause a severe pandemic

Threat to U.S. from new ?bird flu? virus: possible but unknown

POSTED MAY 17, 2013, 2:23 PM
Anthony Komaroff, M.D., Editor in Chief, Harvard Health Publications

...Should we in the U.S. be worried?

Neither I nor anyone I know can give a confident answer to that question.
What makes flu viruses so unpredictable is that they are constantly changing or mutating their genes. They also are constantly swapping their genes with the genes of other flu viruses. When they change or swap their genes, they change their character.

...so far the new H7N9 virus has not clearly spread from one person to another, and has not spread outside of Eastern China. But things can change quickly with flu viruses.
...
How bad can a flu virus be? The worst flu outbreak for which we have good records occurred in 1918. A new virus emerged that spread easily between people and made people very sick.

How easily, and how sick? In the course of a few months, 30% of the people in the world caught the virus, and at least 20 million people died. That?s more than were killed in World War I.

Here in Boston, at the height of the pandemic, 200 dead people every day were carried through the streets in horse-drawn wagons, and often buried in mass graves. As in many other cities around the world, overnight there were hundreds and thousands of orphans. The grandmother of one of my colleagues on the faculty here was one of those orphans. I am not being melodramatic: the worse influenza pandemics can be truly awful.
...
http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/...d-flu-virus-possible-but-unknown-201305176277

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Discussion - Chinese researchers speculate that Influenza A(H7N9) could cause a severe pandemic

Yes, melodramatic but true.

It is Worth to note that in some circumstances overcrowded large families were completely spared by spanish flu virus, here in Italy, where overall almost half a million of people died from that illness.

Some of these families were earlier hit by the 'Nona' epidemic (also known as the 'Russian' flu) during 1888-89.

Dynamic of host-pathogen interactions remains to be established, and thus prediction or preconizing everything in this field remains challenging.