The last 4 weeks have seen viruses feature widely in the press, both in the UK and worldwide. In February the Novel COronaVirus, NCov, which first appeared last year associated with an individual from Qatar, resurfaced thanks to a case in Manchester. Press coverage was extensive (as it is currently for H7N9 – see below) but has now faded as no further cases beyond the individual and his son have emerged. There is a dismal twist to this story in that the clinician who first isolated the virus in Saudi Arabia, Dr Ali Mohamed Zaki, is reported to have been dismissed for alerting the International community and sending the virus out for characterisation without going through official channels[1]. That is unjust, there is only one form of biological agent that can appear as if from nowhere, can spread rapidly and has the potential to cause high morbidity and mortality and that is the viruses. Without rapid dissemination of information, prospects for diagnosis and control are limited and as it happens, Dr Zaki’s report[2] allowed the diagnosis of the further cases that have since been described.

Current concern centres on a new influenza infection so far limited to south east China. The virus is H7N9 influenza, one of the many forms of bird flu, and has infected about a dozen people, killing a third of them[3]. The likelihood that this represents the start of another epidemic is very low as the pattern of infection, sporadic cases with no obvious link between them, is characteristic of multiple incursions into man from a common source rather than person to person spread (figure). Screening has recently found the virus in pigeons[4] so we wait to see if the common factor here was association with pigeon droppings. H7 viruses have infected and killed humans before but this would be the biggest reported outbreak so far.

The current H7N9 infections clearly match the pattern on the left not the right

The latest measles scare[5] is the latest in a series that has been covered here before[6]. All derive from the below herd immunity level of protection in the population thanks to discredited vaccine scare stories. The really scary element is that non-scientific diatribe is so easily believed and that it takes the jolt of a return to how it would otherwise be to persuade people to immunise. It is not a new phenomenon[7] but it is very curious to me that the potential scare element of the coronavirus and H7N9 stories above is what makes them newsworthy – people are genuinely concerned a new infection might spread. Yet the very immunisations that provide protection are shunned for the most lackadaisical of reasons.