2013-08-31

The international research team led by Professor Yi Guan, director of the Joint Influenza Research Centre (SUMC/HKU) at Shantou University Medical College, in collaboration with other famous research institutions and laboratories at home and abroad, has recently found more clues about the H7N9 influenza viruses and published their research findings entitled “The Genesis and Source of the H7N9 Influenza Viruses Causing Human Infections in China” in the world’s most prestigious international scientific journal, Science (published online August 21, 2013).

The research findings indicate that chickens at live poultry markets are very likely the immediate source of human infections and that the viruses might replicate and shed from respiratory and oral tracts of chickens. The researchers show that H7 viruses probably transferred from wild birds to domestic ducks; those viruses reassorted and transferred to chickens; after transmission, reassortment with H9N2 viruses led to the H7N9 viruses with the potential to infect humans. The researchers also find a previously unknown, but related H7N7 influenza virus that have the ability to infect mammals under experimental conditions, and raise concerns that the pandemic threat may go beyond the H7N9 virus. They further point out that it is essential to reconsider the management of live poultry markets in urban areas and conduct long-term influenza surveillance for early warning of novel reassortant viruses and interspecies transmission events.

For more details about this research, please see here.