Photo Credit – FAO
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Despite nearly 400 (known) human infections across China, the H7N9 avian influenza virus is more than just a public health problem, as it poses serious social, economic and political challenges for the Chinese government as well.
Simply put, with 1.3 billion mouths to feed, anything that threatens China’s food supply could have enormous destabilizing effects on that nation.
China, which produces more poultry than anyplace else on earth, reportedly raises in excess of 15 Billion birds (cite Vaccines for pandemic influenza as of 2005) each year. Any avian virus, or a culling policy to control that virus, that seriously threatens their poultry industry also raises the specter of mass hunger in the world’s most populous nation.
And hunger, as China’s leaders know, often leads to social unrest and political instability.
For years China has battled the H5N1 virus, relying primarily upon vaccines, and culling of those birds that fall ill. But this new H7N9 virus doesn’t produce visible symptoms in poultry, making it extraordinarily difficult to detect, and effective poultry vaccines are not yet readily available.
Up until recently, the H7N9 virus had been only detected in live bird markets, a few wild birds sampled, and in humans.
The announcement yesterday that it had been detected in a poultry farm (see H7N9 Detected On Guangdong Poultry Farm) has understandably raised the ante, and Guangdong’s Department of Agriculture has now released a 5-point plan to address the emergency.
First excerpts (slightly reformatted for readability) from report from Yangcheng Evening News, after which I’ll be back with a bit more:
H7N9 detected in poultry farms in Zhuhai
2014-03-20 08:37:39 Source: Yangcheng Evening News Online No Comment
Guangdong Provincial Department of Agriculture issued a circular requiring local and actively promote the listing of central slaughtering poultry chilled
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Meanwhile, the Provincial Department of Agriculture issued "on the strengthening of H7N9 bird flu prevention and control of emergency," which requires the country:
- First, strengthen poultry farms and poultry markets of H7N9 avian influenza surveillance, focusing on strengthening the scale farms, farming-intensive areas and monitoring of poultry wholesale market work. Found positive for H7N9 avian influenza in poultry farms, in a timely manner as required quick disposal.
- The second is to strengthen the quarantine of poultry origin, slaughter and quarantine supervision and circulation. Assist departments in implementing zero overnight poultry poultry market system, while there are plans to guide sales of live poultry purchased live poultry and live bird handling day unsold work, live poultry to prevent backflow into poultry farms.
- Third, the practical implementation of large-scale farming enterprises within the jurisdiction of the contact person designated to work the system to guide farms (households) to strengthen the integrated management of disease prevention, strengthen environmental and entry and exit of vehicles disinfection and decontamination and disposal of prohibited appearances poultry farms reflux.
- Fourth is to strengthen emergency duty, prepared to deal with sudden outbreaks of the preparatory work.
- Fifth, actively promote the transformation and upgrading of the poultry industry, and vigorously promote the standardization of poultry farms, and actively promote centralized slaughtering poultry cold fresh market.
Foshan: From July to gradually ban live poultry trade
From the beginning of July this year, will be piloted in Foshan central slaughtering of live poultry, cold chain distribution, chilled market. In other words, the future will gradually Foshan residents can not buy from the market of live chickens, ducks and geese.
The move away from live-markets to the sale of `chilled’ birds has been attempted before in China, but has always met with a good deal of public opposition (see 2009 blog China Announces Plan To Shut Down Live Poultry Markets In Many Cities). Purchasing live market birds is deeply ingrained in the Chinese culture, as it reassures the buyer that the bird is both fresh and healthy.
Their ambitious plan, announced 5 years ago to `shut live poultry markets in all large and medium-sized cities throughout China’, was eventually abandoned.
That said, the evidence that closing live-bird markets reduces the spread of the H7N9 virus (at least for now) is pretty solid (see The Lancet: Poultry Market Closure Effect On H7N9 Transmission), making it the obvious first step in breaking the chain of transmission.
While all of the possible vectors of the H7N9 virus haven’t been identified, a paper that was published this week in the Journal of Virology, points the finger squarely at chickens and quail as the most likely suspects.
Role of poultry in spread of novel H7N9 influenza virus in China
Mary J. Pantin-Jackwood, Patti J. Miller, Erica Spackman, David E. Swayne, Leonardo Susta, Mar Costa-Hurtado and David L. Suarez
Exotic and Emerging Avian Disease Research Unit, Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory, Agricultural Research Service, USDA, Athens, GA
IMPORTANCE The recent outbreak of H7N9 in China has resulted in a number of human infections with a high case fatality rate. The source of the viral outbreak is suspected to be from poultry, but definitive data for the source of the infection is not known. This study provides experimental data to show that quail and chickens are susceptible to infection and shed large amounts of virus and are likely important in the spread of the virus to humans. Other poultry species, including Muscovy ducks, can be infected and shed virus, but are less likely to play a role of transmitting the virus to humans. Pigeons were previously suggested as a possible source of virus because of isolation of virus from several pigeons in poultry markets in China, but experimental studies show they are generally resistant to infection and are unlikely to play a role in spread of the virus.
As we’ve seen with H5N1 in China, Indonesia, and Egypt, and the H5N8 virus recently emerged in Korea – once a well adapted avian virus gets a toehold in commercial poultry flocks – it can be very difficult to eradicate or contain.
And given the rate of spread of this virus, the risks to poultry industries – and to local food supplies – may well eventually expand beyond the confines of China (see Vietnam Girds Against H7N9 As H5N1 Spreads).
While we worry primarily about the H7N9 virus becoming a pandemic threat, it needn’t make that evolutionary jump to have a profound effect on the peoples of Asia, and conceivably, the rest of the world.
