Officials Concerned That The Surge of H7N9 Cases Will Be Exacerbated With Chinese New Year Travel

At the end of March 2013, H7N9 made the jump from domestic and wild fowl to people. Within a month, 126 cases and 24 deaths had been reported.

Control measures such as closing live poultry markets and mass screening of birds slowed the disease. Just five confirmed cases were recorded on the Chinese mainland between June and November.

Now, as millions of Chinese, and tens of millions of chickens are on the move for the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, the case count is rising. There have been 73 new cases reported so far  in 2014.

With an average of a case a month since June, this represents a rise of over 6,300% during January. The death toll has also risen with 55 out of the 219 confirmed cases dying from the disease.

Crowded trains, where travelling with poultry is considered normal, could well allow the disease to move across vast distances in a much shorter time than the disease would have done on its own.

Prof. John McCauley, director of a World Health Organization collaborating center in London said:

“I’ve been worried all the time about H7N9; it’s highly virulent and the case fatality is about one in three, so it poses a threat.” (source)

Hong Kong has started culling chickens brought in from the Chinese mainland after the disease was found in some of the birds. The government in Hong Kong has banned the import of live chickens for three weeks.