Guizhou Province – Credit Wikipedia
# 9699
A little over a year ago, Guizhou province reported their one and only H7N9 case (see Guizhou Province Reports Their First (Apparently Imported) H7N9 Case). Since then - with the exception of 10 cases reported from the Xinjiang autonomous region in the far west - almost all H7N9 cases have been clustered around China’s Eastern provinces.
Whether this indicates a lack of H7N9 in the interior provinces of China, or simply a lack or surveillance and reporting, is unknown.
But what we do have today is a report of Guizhou Province’s second H7N9 case of record, this time apparently locally acquired.
China's Guizhou reports one human H7N9 case
(Xinhua) 15:28, February 11, 2015
GUIYANG, Feb. 11 -- The H7N9 bird flu strain has been found in an individual in southwest China's Guizhou Province, the provincial health authorities said on Wednesday.
The patient, 44, has had a high temperature since last Thursday. After failing to cure the fever using medicines at home, the patient went to a hospital in Guiyang city and was diagnosed with a lung infection.
According to Tuesday's lab testing result, the patient was infected with H7N9 avian influenza.
An investigation shows the patient, whose family members work culling poultry, had contact history with live poultry prior to the fever.
No abnormality has been found in close contacts of the patient.
Winter and spring are a high-incidence period for bird flu. Thousands of chickens have been culled in south China's Guangdong Province and Hong Kong this year. Several cities in Guangdong have taken measures to restrict the live poultry trade.
The number of H7N9 human cases in Guangdong has reached 43 this year with one more case reported on Tuesday. Shanghai, Fujian, Jiangxi and Zhejiang in east China have all reported human cases of H7N9 this winter.
H7N9 is a bird flu strain first reported to have infected humans in March 2013.
Despite recent case announcements from a Hong Kong’s CHP and the World Health Organization, a number of provinces that reported cases last year have yet to be heard from in this 3rd wave of H7N9.
