信源：明报
|
近日，中共媒体宣称上海、安徽三人被传染H7N9禽流感死亡。此信息公开距患者死亡已过去20多天。家属质疑H7N9禽流感人传人，指责上海第五人民医院为感染源头。香港议员则斥大陆医院轻率。由于这次禽流感的死者之一是猪肉摊贩，不少民众认为新病毒与黄浦江死猪事件有关。
Bird flu More cases more rumours in Chinas
spreading outbreak
A woman at a chicken
farm in Zouping, east China's Shandong province on Monday. (AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
Rumours have been coming fast and furious in
the wake of Sunday's announcement that a new bird flu strain, H7N9, has infected humans for the first time (that
we know of, that is). Two men in Shanghai have died; a woman in Anhui province,
some 360 kilometres away, has also fallen ill and is now in critical condition.
Earlier Tuesday, a picture was making the rounds on
Twitter and Chinese media, allegedly a patient's diagnosis sheet leaked by a
hospital staffer in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province. The person posted the
picture on Chinese social networking website Weibo and said the patient was a
45-year-old poultry butcher who was confirmed as having H7N9 on March 30.
That information remains unconfirmed but now
it looks like we have official word of four more cases from four different
cities in Jiangsu province -- including a 45-year-old poultry butcher.
Jiangsu's health department has posted a Chinese-language press release on
their website announcing the additional cases -- which have not yet been
confirmed by the World Health Organization.
According to a machine-translated version of
the Chinese announcement, the new patients are:
* A 45-year-old female from Jiangning District
who worked with poultry. She developed symptoms (fever, dizziness, body aches,
fatigue) on March 19; on March 27, she went into ICU. Currently in critical
condition. The Chinese CDC tested her today and she was positive for H7N9.
Officials are now monitoring 49 people who have come into contact with her;
none are showing any symptoms yet.
* A 48-year-old woman who worked in
"sheet metal processing." Developed symptoms on March 19 and was
transferred to ICU on March 30 at Nanjing Hospital. Currently in critical
condition. Was confirmed to have H7N9 today by the Chinese CDC. Officials are
now tracing 60 people who have come into close contact with the patient; none
have any symptoms.
*83-year-old male from Suzhou Wujiang
District. Developed symptoms on March 20 and was transferred to hospital on
March 29. Tested positive for H7N9 on April 1. Officials are now following 15
contacts of this patient; none have yet to show any symptoms.
* A 32-year-old unemplyed woman who lives in
Wuxi city. Developed symptoms on March 21 and was transferred to a hospital on
March 28. She was confirmed to have H7N9 on March 31 by Jiangsu health
authorities, a diagnosis that was confirmed on April 2. Health officials are
monitoring 43 people who've come into contact with the patient; none have
respiratory symptoms.
There are apparently no epidemiological links
between the four Jiangsu cases.
Update: Some information on what Chinese authorities are doing to
step up their outbreak response, from an Associated Press report by Gillian Wong:
The provincial health bureau said it was strengthening measures to
monitor suspicious cases and urged the public to stay calm, joining Beijing and
China's financial capital, Shanghai, in rolling out new steps to respond to the
relatively unknown virus.
The latest cases follow the three earlier ones reported Sunday,
including two men who died in Shanghai, resulting in the city activating an
emergency plan that calls for heightened monitoring of suspicious flu cases.
Under the contingency plan, schools, hospitals and retirement facilities are to
be on the alert for fevers, and administrators are to report to health
authorities if there are more than five cases of flu in a week.
Cases of severe pneumonia with unclear causes are to be reported
daily by hospitals to health bureaus, up from the weekly norm. The plan also
called for stronger monitoring of people who work at poultry farms or are
exposed to birds.
The level-3 response plan, the second-lowest in a four-stage
scale, reflects higher concern after the H7N9 bird flu virus led to the deaths
in Shanghai and seriously sickened a woman in the city of Chuzhou 360
kilometres west.
"The health bureau will take effective and powerful measures
to prevent and control the disease, to make sure the flu epidemic is
effectively guarded against and to safeguard the health of the city's
residents," said Xu Jianguang, head of the Shanghai Health Bureau.
Health officials said this week there was no evidence that any of
the three earlier cases, who were infected over the past two months, had
contracted the disease from each other, and no sign of infection in the 88
people who had closest contact with them.
Health authorities in Beijing also upped the capital's state of
readiness, ordering hospitals to monitor for cases of bird flu and pneumonia
without clear causes, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
The announcements, as lacking in details as they are, show that
the government is mildly more transparent in handling health crises than it was
a decade ago during the SARS pneumonia epidemic. Then, as rumours circulated
for weeks of an outbreak of an unidentified disease in southern Guangdong
province, government silence contributed to the spread of the virus to many
parts of China and to two dozen other countries.
Scientists are closely monitoring these viruses for fear they
could mutate into a strain that easy spreads among people, but there's no
evidence of that occurring.
Jennifer Yang is the Star’s global
health reporter. She previously worked as a general assignment
reporter and won a NNA in 2011 for her explanatory piece on the Chilean mining
disaster. Follow her on Twitter: @jyangstar
No comments:
Post a Comment