An H7N9 outbreak in broiler chickens in Mississippi began March 8. First outbreak in the US for this strain since 2017. It has *not* killed (or even sickened) any Americans.
Fear not! All bird flu strains are caused by influenza A, like most human influenza, and they constantly mutate. But NONE have ever mutated naturally to spread between people--outside a lab, that is
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influenza-bird-flu/h7n9-avian-flu-strikes-mississippi-broiler-farm
But all together, 1.4 million more birds were “depopulated” since last week.
So the outbreak was discovered on March 8, 16 days ago. A lot of people were needed to cull and dispose of 47,000 H7N9-affected broilers, and another 1.3 million chickens that were exposed to genotypes of H5N1 and were culled last week. Yet none of those people got sick. They are being monitored.
PLEASE ignore the fear mongering. The H7N9 virus may have killed people years ago (like the H5N1) but it is not doing that now.
Even if it was, there is no reason to think that TWC’s kit, containing the prescription drugs azithromycin and oseltamvir, will save your life. Perhaps the iodine gargle/nasal rinse will, but you can buy povidone iodine cheaply at the drug store or on Amazon, like I did, and dilute it.
It is true that CDC recommends oseltamvir for bird flu, but this is merely because they want to recommend something, and oseltamvir is licensed for Influenza A viruses, although its benefit is minimal. Have you ever known anyone who got flu, took oseltamvir (aka Tamiflu) and got better fast? It doesn’t happen.
Well, of course anything can happen, but the manufacturer was not able to find any trial subjects who jumped out of bed after taking it.
What ABOUT a lab-generated lethal H7N9? Our friendly biowarrior scientists have been hard at work creating them. Here is one example out of Canada and China, from 2020:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7020020
Abstract
Low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) H7N9 viruses have recently evolved to gain a polybasic cleavage site in the hemagglutinin (HA) protein, resulting in variants with increased lethality in poultry that meet the criteria for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses. Both LPAI and HPAI variants can cause severe disease in humans (case fatality rate of ~40%). Here, we investigated the virulence of HPAI H7N9 viruses containing a polybasic HA cleavage site (H7N9-PBC) in mice. Inoculation of mice with H7N9-PBC did not result in observable disease; however, mice inoculated with a mouse-adapted version of this virus, generated by a single passage in mice, caused uniformly lethal disease. In addition to the PBC site, we identified three other mutations that are important for host-adaptation and virulence in mice: HA (A452T), PA (D347G), and PB2 (M483K). Using reverse genetics, we confirmed that the HA mutation was the most critical for increased virulence in mice. Our study identifies additional disease determinants in a mammalian model for HPAI H7N9 virus. Furthermore, the ease displayed by the virus to adapt to a new host highlights the potential for H7N9-PBC viruses to rapidly acquire mutations that may enhance their risk to humans or other animal species.
I keep saying it, but is anybody listening? We need to shut down these gain-of-function labs, immediately.
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Never fear, CDC already had a PCR kit ready to detect H7N9 back in November 2024. How very perspicacious of them. Timely, too.
https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/php/severe-potential/h7n9-testing-laboratories.html
