Hong Kong team makes H7N9 breakthrough
March 27, 2017 Category Health, Weekly
A team of researchers at the University of Hong Kong has discovered how the deadly H7N9 virus has attained a higher ability to infect humans while also being contagious among avian species, placing the city at the forefront of bird flu drug development. Scientists analyzed the DNA of H7N9 virus strains collected since the 2013 outbreak, and identified a gene mutation that allowed it to adapt to human cells. The research, headed by Professor Chen Honglin of the university’s State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases, was published in the scientific journal Nature Communications. Chen said the findings could “help monitor the emergence and transmission of the bird flu virus in humans and prevent human-to-human infection, as well as provide a new target for antivirus drug development”. He added that it was rare for avian viruses to be transmitted to humans, but the mutation in this case was particularly aggressive and adaptable. There is currently no publicly available vaccine to protect against the H7N9 virus infection. The first confirmed infections of the new H7N9 strain of bird flu were reported in China in March 2013. There were a total of 1,329 confirmed human H7N9 cases around the world since then, claiming at least 492 lives. Most of the cases were from mainland China, while Hong Kong registered 21, and 10 other cases were distributed across Taiwan, Canada, Macao, and Malaysia, the South China Morning Post reports.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have urged the Chinese government to take more precautionary measures to prevent a possible bird flu epidemic as the virus may become capable of human-to-human transmission. China reported 352 human cases of H7N9 in the first two months of the year, resulting in 140 deaths.
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