But THEY may still push the vaccine
A detailed epidemiologic study of the first 9 months of
the H7N9 avian flu outbreak in China reinforces the image of the illness as one
that rarely spreads from person to person but may possibly do so when there is
prolonged, close contact between the sick and the healthy.
The lengthy report, released today by The New England
Journal of Medicine, covers 139 human H7N9 cases recorded through November
of 2013. All but 2 of the patients were hospitalized, and 47 (34%) died. More
than 80% of the patients were exposed to animals, mostly poultry, before they
got sick.
Monitoring of close to 2,700 contacts of the H7N9
patients turned up no additional cases, according to the report by a large team
of mostly Chinese authors. However, they say person-to-person transmission
might have occurred in four family clusters involving close contact.
That conclusion is similar to what the World Health
Organization said in May 2013, after the first wave of H7N9 cases subsided. The
agency reported then that there had been four clusters of two or more
case-patients who were in close contact, suggesting the possibility of limited
human transmission.
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