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Reuters

Lab experiments on a new strain of the H7N9 bird flu circulating in China suggest the virus can transmit easily among animals and can cause lethal disease, raising alarms the virus has the potential for triggering a global human pandemic, researchers reported on Thursday.
The H7N9 virus has been circulating in China since 2013, causing severe disease in people exposed to infected poultry. Last year, however, human cases spiked, and the virus split into two distinct strains that are so different they no longer succumb to existing vaccines.

One of these has also become highly pathogenic, meaning it has gained the ability to kill infected birds, posing a threat to agriculture markets.
US and Japanese researchers studied a sample of this new highly pathogenic strain to see how well it spread among mammals, including ferrets, which are considered the best animal model for testing the transmissibility of influenza in humans.

In the study published in Cell Host&Microbe, flu expert Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin and colleagues tested a version of the new H7N9 strain taken from a person who died from their infection last spring.
They found that the virus replicated efficiently in mice, ferrets and non-human primates, and that it caused even more severe disease in mice and ferrets than a low pathogenic version of the same virus that does not cause illness in birds.
Step up bird flu tests on chickens, Hong Kong health expert urges
To test transmissibility, the team placed healthy ferrets next to infected animals and found the virus spread easily from cage to cage, suggesting the virus can be transmitted by respiratory droplets such as those produced by coughing and sneezing.
Two out of three healthy ferrets infected in this way died, which Kawaoka said is “extremely unusual,” suggesting that even a small amount of virus can cause severe disease.
“The work is very concerning in terms of the implications for what H7N9 might do in the days ahead in terms of human infection,” said Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert from the University of Minnesota.

Since 2013, the H7N9 bird flu virus has already sickened at least 1,562 people in China and killed at least 612. Some 40 per cent of people hospitalised with the virus die.
In the first four epidemics, the virus showed few changes. But last flu season, there were some 764 cases – nearly half of the 1,562 total. “The whole world is worried about it,” Osterholm said.


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H7N9 virus

New strain of bird flu virus from China could cause global pandemic, say scientists

People participate in an emergency exercise on prevention and control of H7N9 bird flu virus organised by the Health and Family Planning Commission of the local government in Hebi, Henan province, China June 17, 2017. Picture taken June 17, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. CHINA OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN CHINA.

FILE PHOTO: Chickens are seen at a poultry farm on the outskirts of Hefei, Anhui province, November 20, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo CHINA OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN CHINA

This photo taken on February 12, 2017 shows an H7N9 bird flu patient being treated in a hospital in Wuhan, central China's Hubei province. China is experiencing its deadliest outbreak of the H7N9 bird-flu strain since it first appeared in humans in 2013, killing 79 people in January alone and spurring several cities to suspend live poultry trade. / AFP PHOTO / STR / China OUT

In this 2014 file photo, health workers in full protective gear collect dead chickens killed by using carbon dioxide, after bird flu was found in some birds at a wholesale poultry market in Hong Kong. ﻿New strains of the H7N9 bird flu virus in China has shown the potential to possibly cause a global pandemic. Photo: AP