Millions at risk as flu pandemic conditions ripen in China, health official warns
Shanghai. October 16. INTERFAX-CHINA
A Chinese health official with the China Center for Disease prevention and Control (China CDC) warned yesterday that China is increasingly at risk of influenza pandemics that could see almost 200 million people infected in China, according to domestic media.
Models based on previous pandemic influenza outbreaks in China, and taking into account current conditions across the populous nation, forecast 177 million to 197 million Chinese people infected, with predictions ranging between 460,000 and 6.95 million deaths if China is hit by a flu pandemic now, Feng Zijian, director of the emergency treatment office of the China CDC told the 2007 Conference on Flu Vaccination and Training for Community Health Center Doctors, held in Guangzhou, the Guangzhou Daily reported.
Experts at the conference emphasized that the risk of pandemic-level influenza outbreaks has been increasing since 2003. "Around the globe we are seeing a greater number of bird flu outbreaks, each one enhancing the risk of bird flu, an influenza A strain virus, being transmitted to humans," Zhong Nanshan a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, who is well known for his work in SARS treatment, said.
Zhong said that Luohu type flu virus, which is prevalent in Guangdong, is a variant of the influenza A/Solomon Islands virus. The Luohu strain is not a 100 percent match with vaccines for the strains recommend by the WHO, but the present vaccines are still effective in preventing influenza. Zhong explained that strains of influenza in China have never precisely matched WHO-recommended vaccines, though the efficacy of those vaccines in treating flu in China has never been compromised.
Zhong said that flu vaccination can reduce mortality rates due to flu by more than half, and appealed to people in all high risk groups, such as the elderly, young and ill, to be vaccinated as soon as possible in preparation for the onset of the flu season.
-KZ
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