This report which is part of the RAGIDA project (Risk Assessment Guidance for Infectious Diseases transmitted on Aircraft) provides viable options for decision-makers when faced with the choice of whether to contact trace air travellers and crew that were potentially exposed to infectious diseases during a flight.
This second update to ECDC's initial risk assessment concludes that the risk of the disease spreading to Europe via humans or through poultry is still low at this time.
On 31 March 2013, Chinese authorities announced the identification of a novel reassortant A(H7N9) influenza virus isolated from three unlinked cases of severe respiratory disease in eastern China. This is the first time that human infection with avian influenza virus A(H7N9) has been identified.
Since then, human cases have continued to be reported from eastern China. As of 11 April, there were 38 laboratory-confirmed cases including ten deaths reported from four bordering provinces with a concentration of cases in and around Shanghai. Cases occur sporadically, without obvious epidemiological links. There is currently no confirmed human-to-human transmission.
Following the emergence of swine influenza A(H3N2) variant (v) viruses with sporadic human infections in North America, the Community Network of Reference Laboratories (CNRL) and the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency completed an exercise to assess the CNRL’s capability to detect novel reassortant and circulating triple reassortant swine viruses (TRA) in humans.
The results of two, as yet unpublished, investigations of laboratory-induced genetic changes in avian influenza A(H5N1) viruses have been reported to have found that a surprisingly few number of changes make the viruses transmissible between ferrets, the most commonly used model for the way influenza behaves in humans. The possibility that this could have resulted in the development in laboratories of A(H5N1) influenza viruses transmissible between humans has caused concern for public safety and generated unusually high levels of debate in the scientific community. This report summarises and explains the complex public health and scientific issues around these developments including the positive and negative aspects of some of the responses that have been proposed internationally.