April 26, 2013

BEIJING — As of Thursday 109 people have been confirmed to be dead from the H7N9 virus which emerged rather quickly this April after the typical flu season.

Human-to-human transmission has not yet been documented. However, reports from the World Health Organization state that 40% of the victims did not have contact with any type of poultry raising concern amongst the medical community.

Even more alarming is the fact that the virus has over a 20% mortality rate right out of the gate. If this proves to continue, we could possibly be looking at one of the most deadly viral outbreaks of all time. This is backed up by others such as journalist, Patrick Di Justo, who wrote, “As of today, dividing the number of confirmed cases by the number of deaths makes it look as though H7N9 is an especially bad flu, with a twenty-per-cent mortality rate. If true, this would be terrifying: the 1918 Spanish Flu, which has been called one of the deadliest plagues in human history, also had a mortality rate of around two percent.”