BC woman diagnosed with first human case of H7N9 avian flu in North America

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A woman from the Lower Mainland has contracted the first-known human case of H7N9 avian flu in North America.

The woman is in her fifties and was recently travelling through China. Her partner is also being tested, but he has not yet been diagnosed with the virus.

“The individual is recovering and was not seriously ill. H7N9 influenza is not the same as seasonal flu. I want to emphasize that the risk to Canadians is very low because there is no evidence of sustained human to human transmission with H7N9,” explains Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Gregory Taylor. “The individual was not symptomatic during travel and only began to feel unwell on January 14th, at that time they sought medical attention but were not sick enough to require hospitalization.”

Anyone traveling to Asia is being asked to stay away from farms or markets with live animals.

This strain of avian flu is not the same as the one recently seen in poultry at farms in the Lower Mainland.

Nearly 500 people have been infected with this strain of bird flu since the first human case emerged in China in 2013 and about a third of those cases have died.

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