Beijing reports 2nd H7N9 infection; Drug resistance in new China bird flu raises concern

Beijing reports 2nd H7N9 infection

English.news.cn   2013-05-2

BEIJING, May 28 (Xinhua) — Health authorities in Beijing Tuesday reported a second human infection of the H7N9 strain of bird flu in the Chinese capital.

A six-year-old boy who lives in the Haidian district was confirmed to have been infected with the H7N9 strain Tuesday afternoon, the Beijing municipal health bureau said in a statement.

The child developed symptoms including fever and headache on May 21 and he was sent to a hospital for medical treatment on the same day. His body temperature returned to normal on May 23 and he returned to kindergarten the next day, according to the statement.

The boy was sent to the Beijing Ditan Hospital for further medical observation after being confirmed of the H7N9 infection Tuesday.The boy is in good condition and his body temperature has been normal for five straight days, it added.

The H7N9 epidemic has waned this month with only a few cases being confirmed.

With the latest case, the Chinese mainland has reported 131 confirmed H7N9 cases and of them, 37 were killed.

 

Drug resistance in new China bird flu raises concern

Tue, May 28 2013

By Ben Hirschler

LONDON (Reuters) – The new bird flu strain that has killed 36 people in China has proved resistant to Tamiflu for the first time, a development scientists said was “concerning”.

The H7N9 virus was found to be resistant to Roche’s widely used flu drug in three out of 14 patients who were studied in detail by doctors from Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Tamiflu, which is given as a pill, belongs to a group of medicines known as neuraminidase inhibitors that currently offer the only known treatment option for bird flu. GlaxoSmithKline’s inhaled medicine Relenza has the same mode of action.

In one patient, the gene mutation responsible for resistance appears to have arisen after infection took hold, probably as a result of treatment with Tamiflu, leading to concerns that medication may be the trigger for resistance to develop.

“The apparent ease with which antiviral resistance emerges in A/H7N9 viruses is concerning; it needs to be closely monitored and considered in future pandemic response plans,” the researchers wrote in an article published online by The Lancet medical journal on Tuesday.

Earlier genetic studies had raised worries about drug resistance but this is the first time that the problem has been documented in clinical cases.

For most of the 14 patients studied, Tamiflu successfully reduced the amount of virus found in throat swabs and helped speed clinical recovery. But it had no impact on the amount of virus found in swabs from three patients who became severely ill.

A spokeswoman for Swiss-based drugmaker Roche said rates of Tamiflu resistance remained low globally, but it took the issue of resistance “very seriously” and was collaborating with health authorities to monitor the situation.

The H7N9 virus is known to have infected 131 people in China since February, but no new cases have been detected since early May, according to the World Health Organization.

Experts from the United Nations agency said last week the bird flu outbreak in China had caused some $6.5 billion in losses to the economy.

Scientific studies of the virus have established it is being transmitted from birds – probably mostly chickens – to people. But experts have yet to identify the source of the circulating virus – the so-called “reservoir” – that is leading to chickens contracting it and sporadically passing it on to humans.