New Virus DOOM! Meet H5N1's cousin

Read the top news story along the left hand side of page.

Link emerging between illegal immigration and infectious disease outbreaks across America

I miss swine flu and ebola doom

Recent detections of highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N8) in East Asia and Europe, A(H5N8) and A(H5N2) in North America, and A(H5N6) in East and Southeast Asia, have prompted the WHO/OIE/FAO H5 Evolution Working Group to review and update the H5 haemagglutinin (HA) clade nomenclature

The phylogenetic analysis of H5 HA sequences from these viruses revealed extensive divergence and indicated the need to update the clade nomenclature for H5N1, H5N2, H5N5, H5N6, and H5N8 subtype viruses clustering in this HA group.

Grapenator...You'll get your DOOM

[link to www.thepoultrysite.com]

VIET NAM - Two more outbreaks of H5N6 highly pathogenic avian influenza have been discovered in Viet Nam.
Two backyard flocks, amounting to 1824 birds in total, were affected in the Quang Ngai and Kon Tum provinces.

[link to www.who.int]

Details of the cases

The first case is a 25-year-old male from Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, who developed symptoms on 1 January. The patient was admitted to hospital on 4 January and is now in severe condition. He has a history of visiting a live poultry market.

The second case is a 42-year-old male from Jieyang City, Guangdong Province, who developed symptoms on 12 December. The patient was admitted to hospital on 19 December and died on 21 December. He had a history of visiting a live poultry market.

I have read a couple news stories which inferred that some of the new cases, one or two, did not have connection to poultry. I will try and follow up on these stories.

Today we have a 5th notification, involving a 31 year old woman hospitalized in Futian, Shenzhen, published by neighboring Hong Kong's CHP.

Patient is in Critical Condition, again...notice the age

Today we have a 5th notification, involving a 31 year old woman hospitalized in Futian, Shenzhen, published by neighboring Hong Kong's CHP.

Patient is in Critical Condition, again...notice the age

From The Poultry Site

[link to www.thepoultrysite.com]

19 Jan 2016

VIET NAM - Officials in Viet Nam have reported three more highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks in the past week.
One outbreak of the H5N6 strain occurred in Lang Son province, where it affected a backyard flock of 220 birds. Over 150 birds died and the rest were destroyed as a result of the outbreak.

LOL

Never go full retard

Another H5N6 Case reported, in CRITICAL condition. That makes ten cases since the virus emerged, all of them in serious to critical condition and many of them dying.

[3] China (Guangdong) H5N6
Date: Tue 15 Mar 2016
Source: Info Hong Kong [edited]
[link to www.info.gov.hk]


The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) of the Department of Health (DH) was notified of an additional human case of avian influenza A(H5N6) in Guangdong by the National Health and Family Planning Commission today (15 Mar 2016), and again urged the public to maintain strict personal, food and environmental hygiene both locally and during travel.

The case involves a woman aged 40 in Huizhou, Guangdong. She developed fever and cough on 20 Feb 2016 and was admitted to a hospital in Huizhou on 22 Feb 2016. She is now in critical condition. Investigation revealed that the patient had visited a live poultry market before onset of symptoms.

From 2014 to date, a total of 10 human cases of avian influenza A(H5N6) have been reported by the Mainland health authorities.

If you look back at these cases, nearly all of them if not all were under 50 years of age, in good health...and things got nasty quickly. Lets hope this does not emerge to become something worse...

BUMP for new Seasonal information.

This virus has now managed to escape China, and has now spread to Japan, and South Korea. Likely elsewhere in the region but has yet to be detected.

Two new human cases have been recorded and flu season for humans has barely even started. If any of the Avian viruses have the potential to move to humans, this is the ONE.

With several other avian flu viruses in the region, as well as seasonal flu taking hold, recombination risk with those viruses to produce a strain more easily spread is very high.

With at least 34 distinct genotypes of the virus in circulation (and undoubtedly more to come), H5N6 is embarked on multiple evolutionary pathways with unpredictable results.

[link to mainichi.jp]

Koichi Otsuki, professor of veterinary microbiology at Kyoto Sangyo University and head of its avian influenza research center, says H5N6 is "a mutated virus of H5N1, which spread in Southeast Asia starting in 2003," and that H5N6 is highly pathogenic just like H5N1. He adds that H5N6 "may have spread to areas in Japan besides the Tohoku, Kyushu and Chugoku regions where it has been detected, and anti-contagion measures like preventing wild birds from entering chicken farms and using disinfectants are important."

From CIDRAP

[link to www.cidrap.umn.edu]


The researchers wrote that broad distribution of H5N6 in China and Southeast Asia increases the threat to humans, and they said studies have hinted that the virus has increased capacity to bind to human receptors and increased transmissibility in mammals.

"These findings combined with our results demonstrate that H5N6 viruses pose a considerable threat to public health despite the limited number of human cases," they concluded.

Due to migratory pathways of birds, the virus is also likely in Taiwan by now, as this is a popular winter location for birds, ducks, etc.

The greater the geographic spread of the virus, and the larger amount of people in said geographic area will continue to increase the risk of bird to human transmission, thus increasing the chances of Human to Human transmission via recombination.

Well that was fast, just found a news report with a human case of H5N6 in Taiwan, so yes, it is now almost certain birds have brought the virus there. This is big news. This is the first human case outside of China since the virus was found in 2014. To give some perspective, it CAN take viruses many years, even decades before they can transmit easily between humans. H1N1 swine flu, was a perfect example, albeit not nearly as deadly as this virus seems to be. H1N1 took many, many years of slow and subtle changes to be able to move between humans. H5N6 appears to be on a much faster course, spreading over large, densely populated regions.

Heres the article

[link to focustaiwan.tw]

Taipei, Dec. 2 (CNA) Taiwan's Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued its second-highest travel advisory in its three-tier system Friday for the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in China after the region reported a case of H5N6 avian flu.

The CDC said a 30-year-old farmer from Liuzhou was admitted to the hospital on Nov. 18 after coming in contact with sick poultry, and she is now in serious condition.

Any Virus Tards out there?

Just wait and see what happens when M1A1 comes out. It will be a population changer. Waste management will initiate curbside corpses removal FEMA contracts.

Correction the Guangxi Zhuang region is still technically in China, just furthest southern region bordering Vietnam. Still the threat to Taiwan and the region stands. The virus has yet to produce case in this region until now.

Yea, sure...

I am OP btw

[link to www.laht.com]

TAIPEI – The Taiwanese prime minister has ordered greater controls on the country’s borders with Japan and South Korea to prevent the spread of H5 and H5N6 bird flu virus, now causing havoc in the poultry sector of its neighbors.

Lin Chuan ordered the maximum alert and instructed authorities to be prepared to handle any emergencies, responding to possible crises with the aim of reducing the risk of introduction and propagation of bird flu, government spokesperson Hsu Kuo-yung said in a press release.

to follow.

For those who haven't heard about it, the human cases have been pretty nasty..Here's a recent scientific paper on one of the cases

[link to www.sciencedirect.com]

The patient, who presented with fever, severe pneumonia, leucopenia, and lymphopenia, developed septic shock and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), and died on day 10 after illness onset. A novel reassortant avian-origin influenza A (H5N6) virus was isolated from the throat swab or trachea aspirate of the patient. The virus was reassorted with the HA gene of clade 2.3.4.4 H5, the internal genes of clade 2.3.2.1 H5, and the NA gene of the H6N6 avian virus. The cleavage site of the HA gene contained multiple basic amino acids, indicating that the novel H5N6 virus was highly pathogenic in chicken.

The re-assortment of genes h6n6 and h5n1 is considered a quick abrupt change, the more birds that get infected and thus the more humans that get infected as well the greater chance the virus may swap genes with another.

As pointed out above, the vast swathes of highly populated Asia that the virus is being detected in is cause for concern. Essentially every time the virus interacts with humans the dice is rolled, the more times the dice is rolled the greater chance of being a "winner".

Also, they LOVE their chicken and duck in the Pacific. Fresh markets are often the perfect breeding ground, and they exist EVERYWHERE

Agreed and Thank you!! First proper laugh in weeks.

Never, Never go full tard

As I was saying yesterday...here is an example of reassortment , this time in a Chinese pig. Pig's are the perfect breeding ground for new viruses that could jump to humans because we have more similar respiratory systems and receptors.

[link to jvi.asm.org]

Sorry it's a little heavy on the terminology...So it's there for anyone with a science background or anyone who wants to read and learn how this works.

According to the Journal of Virology, that looks at the expanding diversity of reassorted swine flu viruses carrying genes from the 2009 H1N1 pandemic virus in Chinese pigs. While the fully `humanized’ 2009 H1N1 virus doesn’t circulate in swine, researchers have isolated at least 17 reassortants containing pH1N1-origin genes.

----------------------------------------------------

Moral of the story, lets hope the wrong bird does not make friends with the wrong pig. etc.