Efforts to detect H7N9 virus

Shanghai medical staff and scientists are trying to come up with quicker ways of detecting the H7N9 virus. And some say the flu situation could ease as the temperature climbs. CCTV reporter Zhang Jun has more from the city's Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Staff members at the CDC say they've been working around the clock to test nearly a dozen samples of possible H7N9 virus, including blood and saliva from suspected patients. They say they divide each sample into three parts to conduct various tests, and then extract genetic material from the cells.

Zhang Xi, Shanghai Cntr. for Disease Control & Prev., said, "Normally, it takes 5 to 6 hours to detect a suspected H7N9 virus. But sometimes, we will spend double that time preventing false detection and to ensure the result is completely correct for the patients."

CDC officials also say that while they are keeping a close eye on the disease, they expect the outbreak to slow down if the weather cooperates.

Yuan Zheng'An, Deputy Director, Shanghai Cntr. for Disease Control & Prev., said, "In normal conditions in Shanghai, respiratory disease is easiest to get from March to April. But as the temperature soars and summer comes, there is less possibility of people here getting respiratory diseases. "

Outsiders like us have to leave the CDC complex whenever biological samples from suspected influenza patients at Shanghai hospitals are delivered here. And that can happen any time of day or night.

And one local biologist who worked on the molecular evolution of the SARS virus in 2003 says this time, the research is going faster.

Prof. Zhao Guoping, Shanghai Instit. for Biological Sciences, said, "For the origin of the pathogen, SARS was more difficult because people at that time never thought the corona virus was so contagious. But this time because avian influenza virus is well-known as an epidemic pathogen, when people excluded H1, H3, H5, they started to test other kinds of H-forms of the avian influenza virus. So it was quick to identify H7N9. "

But Zhao also says that while there's no evidence of human-to-human infection with H7N9, there are some challenges as well. He says at least two local research institutes under the Chinese Academy of Sciences are doing DNA-level studies on H7N9 with the CDC. But nobody is willing to talk about it yet.

Prof. Zhao Guoping, Shanghai Instit. for Biological Sciences, said, "It seems that the death rate is higher and the scale is spreading faster and more significantly than the H5N1 influenza. So that is the difficult part. "

Zhao stresses that speeding up detection of the H7N9 bird flu virus and treating the patients is more important now than developing a vaccine to fight the disease.

Special Report: H7N9 avian influenza