#Interventions to reduce #zoonotic and #pandemic #risks from #avian #influenza in #Asia (The Lancet Infect Dis., abstract)

[Source: The Lancet Infectious Diseases, full page: (LINK). Abstract, edited.]

Personal View

Interventions to reduce zoonotic and pandemic risks from avian influenza in Asia [      ]

J S Malik Peiris, Benjamin J Cowling, Joseph T Wu, Luzhao Feng, Yi Guan, Hongjie Yu, Gabriel M Leung

Published Online: 01 December 2015 / Publication stage: In Press Corrected Proof / DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(15)00502-2

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

 

Summary

Novel influenza viruses continue to emerge, posing zoonotic and potentially pandemic threats, such as with avian influenza A H7N9. Although closure of live poultry markets (LPMs) in mainland China stopped H7N9 outbreaks temporarily, closures are difficult to sustain, in view of poultry production and marketing systems in China. In this Personal View, we summarise interventions taken in mainland China, and provide evidence for other more sustainable but effective interventions in the live poultry market systems that reduce risk of zoonotic influenza including rest days, and banning live poultry in markets overnight. Separation of live ducks and geese from land-based (ie, non-aquatic) poultry in LPM systems can reduce the risk of emergence of zoonotic and epizootic viruses at source. In view of evidence that H7N9 is now endemic in over half of the provinces in mainland China and will continue to cause recurrent zoonotic disease in the winter months, such interventions should receive high priority in China and other Asian countries at risk of H7N9 through cross-border poultry movements. Such generic measures are likely to reduce known and future threats of zoonotic influenza.

Keywords: Research; Abstracts; Avian Influenza; Asia; China; H7N9; Human; Poultry; Pandemic Influenza; Pandemic Preparedness.

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Giuseppe Michieli

I am an Italian blogger, active since 2005 with main focus on emerging infectious diseases such as avian influenza, SARS, antibiotics resistance, and many other global Health issues. Other fields of interest are: climate change, global warming, geological and biological sciences. My activity consists mainly in collection and analysis of news, public services updates, confronting sources and making decision about what are the 'signals' of an impending crisis (an outbreak, for example). When a signal is detected, I follow traces during the entire course of an event. I started in 2005 my blog ''A TIME'S MEMORY'', now with more than 40,000 posts and 3 millions of web interactions. Subsequently I added an Italian Language blog, then discontinued because of very low traffic and interest. I contributed for seven years to a public forum (FluTrackers.com) in the midst of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014, I left the site to continue alone my data tracking job.