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STORY: GENEVA / WHO-BIRD FLU
TRT: 1.58
SOURCE: CH UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 9 APRIL 2013, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
RECENT – PALAIS DES NATIONS, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exterior Palais des Nations
9 APRIL 2013, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
2. Wide shot, journalists at the Salle III
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Gregory Härtl, Spokesperson, World Health Organization (WHO):
“The big difference with H5N1 is that actually that this H7N9 virus is low pathogenic in poultry so you don’t see it killing off poultry the way H5N1 does so basically don’t eat diseased or dead animals. When you eat chicken or other meat products, make sure the meat is thoroughly cooked so cooked to a temperature of at least 70 degrees so that there is no red meat that remains. And in general practice good hygiene if you’re on a farm or if you’re in a poultry market, make sure that you wash your hands and other parts of yourself and your clothes thoroughly and often. Especially after touching surfaces, for example. And don’t come in contact with birds that look diseased or sick.
4. Cutaway, journalists
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Gregory Härtl, Spokesperson, World Health Organization (WHO):
“As of today, 9 April, as I’m sure you’ve already seen in the media, we have notification of 24 confirmed cases of human H7N1 cases in China. And those 24 cases include 7 deaths.
6. Cutaway, journalist
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Gregory Härtl, Spokesperson, World Health Organization (WHO): “There is no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission. There are some suspected but not yet confirmed cases of perhaps very limited transmission between family members but as I just said, those are still being investigated.”
8. Cutaway, journalists
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Gregory Härtl, Spokesperson, World Health Organization (WHO):
“So far those investigations have yielded 20 positive samples of H7N9 from poultry markets. There have been no positive samples found either in pigs or on farms so the focus at this point is on poultry markets.”
10. Wide shot, journalists
The World Health Organization (WHO) said today that China is still investigating cases of the new H7N9 flu and is starting to test for the new strain across the country. So far, China has confirmed 24 infections, with seven deaths in four provinces in eastern China, near Shanghai.
Speaking to journalists at a briefing in Geneva, Gregory Härtl spokesperson for WHO, said human infections continued to accumulate at a rate of two or three a day, but the cases are still sporadic. He said: “There is no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission. There are some suspected but not yet confirmed cases of perhaps very limited transmission between family members but as I just said, those are still being investigated.”
The exact source of infection remains unknown, although samples tested positive in some birds in poultry markets that remain the focus of investigations by China and the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). So far H7N9 has been found in pigeons, quails and chickens.
H7 flu viruses, like the better known H5 viruses, can come in two forms. They can be highly pathogenic, killing poultry, or can come in a low pathogenicity form. The new virus is the latter, meaning it can spread in a virtually invisible manner among poultry flocks.
Härtl warned: “The big difference with H5N1 is that actually this H7N9 virus is low pathogenic in poultry so you don’t see it killing off poultry the way H5N1 does so basically don’t eat diseased or dead animals.”
