# 7166
Dr. Michael O’Leary, the World Health Organization’s representative in China, gave a media briefing overnight, and answered journalist’s questions.
In this briefing, O’Leary describes three `clusters’ of cases where human-to-human transmission may have occurred.
There are 3 clusters officially reported, I mentioned one of them, the one with the father and 2 sons… 2 of whom, the father and the son who did not die, were confirmed H7N9.
So that’s one of the clusters, and we know about another cluster of a parent and a child, where the daughter was caring for the parent who was very sick, and became sick herself with the H7N9.
A third cluster as well, a husband-and-wife cluster. In both of those, people were sick with severe pneumonia, and so were linked clinically. But I think it’s still the case that in both of those, only one of them is so far confirmed, but the investigations are continuing. And then we know about the other are still under active investigation, the more recent situation here in Beijing, the 7-year-girl who is now released from the hospital, an asymptomatic, (meaning he had) no symptoms neighbor.
Laboratory investigation is still underway, but he is suspected as being positive as well. But that child was not ill.
We’ve got a link to the full transcript, which is a bit long to reproduce here, but I’ve included excerpts.
You’ll want to follow the link to read it in its entirety.
Transcript of media briefing by Dr Michael O'Leary, WHO Representative in China
Situation update on H7N9 in China
19 April 2013 - Good afternoon, and thank you for coming. I want to take this opportunity today to give you another update on the situation with avian influenza A(H7N9), to tell you a little about the WHO joint mission to China, and to answer a few questions.
First, about the mission. This week, WHO and the China National Health and Family Planning Commission are leading a joint mission of experts, at the invitation of the Government of China. The experts will visit areas affected by H7N9 in order to study the situation and provide recommendations on prevention and control of the disease.
I will be accompanying the team which will be visiting a number of sites in both Shanghai and Beijing.
Our team includes international and Chinese experts in epidemiology, laboratories, clinical management, and other areas. We will be meeting with a wide range of experts.
I’ve highlighted a few excerpts from the Q&A below.
JOURNALIST: I’m from China Radio International. Two questions. One, on Tuesday, Hong Kong Health Organization said that this might be a limited human-to-human transmission; do you have any comments on this? And the second question, it was reported before that this team will go to the bird market in Shanghai, where else are they going? Like labs or hospital?
DR MICHAEL O’LEARY: Yes, sure. About limited person-to-person transmission, I mentioned that these clusters are under investigations. It’s not usual even when a virus primarily is transmitting from animal-to-human, to have some rare or occasional cases, of very close contacts, coming down with the virus as well. That’s happened in H5N1 for example. But that’s a very different situation from easy and sustained transmission. And that’s what we do not see in this case. It’s not unexpected that if a person is sick and maybe receiving very close care, from a very close contact, that once in a while, it will pass to the other person, but this is not the same as sustained human-to-human transmissions. So, that’s what we are very alert for, because this becomes a different situation if the virus were to change in a way that enabled human-to-human transmission. Still, that’s not the case, we hope that will never be the case. But that’s what we watch for. Other question about where was the team visiting. Yes, bird markets, although as you know, the live bird markets in Shanghai have been closed. So there won’t be a lot to see. But the team is also on schedule to visit hospitals and other sites that have been the focus of the infection.
JOURNALIST: From BBC News. Could please just tell me, to be clear, what do you think the risks are in this outbreak? How serious do you think it is? You mentioned the concern about human-to-human, but what is the biggest concern to you?
DR MICHAEL O’LEARY: So, you know if the virus remains a primarily animal virus, then the risks to humans, would be expected, I think, to remain rare and sporadic, just as they have been. You know, this is a different virus from H5N1. It may ultimately act differently, but H5N1 has been the case 16 years and is still just the occasional, sporadic case, because it’s effectively an animal virus that once in a while, manages to jump to a human. So the situation changes, as I say, if the virus changes in a way that human-to-human transmission is possible, that’s a separate change from the one that has taken place already. You know, we can’t predict, there’s no way to predict, but it would really require now a separate mutation from the one we’ve seen, because there isn’t any evidence of that happening so far.
