[Breaking] Hangzou H7N9 Outbreak Also Likely Hospital Acquired

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, seems to be a system foreign to the Chinese public health outlets, as we never get all three facets of the truth from them at the same time. It seems to us that Chinese have been molding information releases, possibly to control societal angst  

The case of the Zhejiang cluster also seems to fit that disclosure pattern. On December 1st  we noted that there were possibly two H7N9 cases in  Zhejiang, on December 6 the Chinese announced that there was a 2nd case and that he was a relative of the first case.

At that time, the authorities played down the human to human transmission aspect and pointed towards the 6 chickens owned by the "family". Today we find out that the 2nd H7N9 patient was the stepson of the 1st H7N9 patient and did NOT live with him. But rather, the stepson only had direct contact with the stepfather AFTER he started looking after him at the hospital. 

Frankly its not surprising that this would be another hospital acquired case, as we have seen poor infection control procedures in several videos and pictures released by the media. The Chinese seem to have a great reluctance to release any information pointing at human to human spread of H7N9; hopefully that means they see the fear of H7N9 as being a greater risk than the actual H7N9 infection itself. 


Alternatively, it could mean the authorities fear the loss of control greater than the loss of life. Certainly that was the case in their early years when they disarmed and slaughtered more than 20 million of their own people.  Hopefully it is not the latter, as that would not bode well for a global pandemic.


Source Links:
http://english.cntv.cn/program/china24/20131210/101387.shtml