A CDC scientist uses a pipette to transfer H7N9 virus into vials for sharing with partner laboratories for public health research purposes.
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While it may sound like the working title to a George Pal 1950’s Sci-Fi movie, this spring we find ourselves in the decidedly uncomfortable position of watching two novel viruses – each believed to have some degree of pandemic potential – emerge in two different and hard-to-monitor regions of the world.
Rapid fire reports from Asia and the Middle East have had us – and health agencies like the CDC and World Health Organization - bouncing back and forth between the H7N9 avian flu and nCoV (aka MERS) on a daily basis for more than a month.
Today Maggie Fox of NBC News brings us a report on how the CDC is monitoring this two-tiered threat, along with some reaction from experts. As you’ll see, no one is taking either threat lightly.
Follow the link to read:
Bird flu: US safe from two new viruses - so far
By Maggie Fox, Senior Writer, NBC News
More than 50 travelers just back in the United States from China who had flu-like symptoms have been tested for the H7N9 bird flu virus, federal health officials say. So far, none has tested positive.
But the fact that they’re being tested at all shows just how worried the U.S. government is about this new strain of bird flu, which threatens at the same time as a still-mysterious coronavirus from the Middle East. The test kits had to be specially made up and distributed under an emergency provision.
