# 7446
A pair of articles from CIDRAP News overnight.
Lisa Schnirring put together a terrific roundup of recent H7N9 news and research results (including the Nature Report I wrote about here, yesterday) in her article:
New H7N9 studies yield pathogenicity clues
Lisa Schnirring | Staff Writer | CIDRAP News
Jul 03, 2013The new H7N9 virus linked to China's recent outbreak is well equipped to bind to both avian and human receptors, invade the human lower respiratory tract, and replicate efficiently, a Chinese research team found after putting the virus though its paces in a host of laboratory tests.
The study was one of two reports today that probed the pathogenicity of the H7N9 virus, which could provide health officials with more clues about some puzzling aspects of the disease, including why older people have been hit hardest. In the second study, a group from Hong Kong pitted the H7N9 outbreak strain against other viruses, including H9N2 and H5N1, in a battery of pathogenicity tests using mice.
The two teams said the goals of the tests were to learn more about the pathogenesis mechanisms in H7N9 influenza, which still poses a threat despite a lull in disease activity.
On the MERS-CoV front, Robert Roos – News Editor at CIDRAP – brings us:
Qatari MERS patient dies; WHO offers case-control study guide
Robert Roos | News Editor | CIDRAP News
|
Jul 03, 2013
A Qatari man who had lain in a London hospital with a severe MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) case since last September died last week, it was reported today, while the World Health Organization (WHO) released a study protocol designed to help investigators figure out how the deadly virus is reaching humans.
Both highly recommended.
