H7 Detection in the Nile Delta Is Cause for Concern
Recombinomics Commentary
August 21, 2007
A case of the H7 strain of bird flu was detected in Egypt after a migrant bird in Sharqiya governorate in the Nile Delta tested positive to the H7 virus, Egyptian Health Minister Hatem el-Gabali said on Monday.
El-Gabali confirmed the discovery of the bird flu case when addressing the Heath Committee of the Shura Council on Monday, adding a sample of the virus will be sent abroad for further analysis, the Egyptian official MENA news agency reported.
After a migrated bird from East Europe found in a pond in Sharqiya was tested positive to the H7 strain of the disease, al-Gabali said he contacted Minister of Agriculture Amin Abbaza to hold an emergency meeting of the anti-bird flu committee to assess the situation.
The above translation describing H7 in a migratory bird in the Nile Delta is cause for concern. H7 is efficiently transmitted from human-to-human, as has been seen in multiple recent H7 outbreaks in Europe, including the recent H7N2 outbreak in the UK. H7N3 was in the UK last year and H7N7 was in the Netherlands in 2003. All three outbreaks resulted in reported human infections.
In late 2006, M230I was detected in human H5N1 cases in the Nile Delta, which was followed by additional bird and human isolates in 2007 with M230I. The emergence of M230i was couple with convergence of two distinct coding sequences for the M230I (see Options VI presentation). One matched the H5N1 sequence from an eagle owl from Germany, while the other matched H7N3 UK bird isolates from 2006.
The H7 match raised the possibility that H7 was also circulating in the Nile Delta and the se H7 sequences servered as donors for the new Qinghai clade 2.2 in the Nile Delta.
More information on the sequence of the H7 would be useful.
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