H7N9 bird flu prevention and control program

(en.nhfpc.gov.cn)

Updated: 2014-06-30

Case management and infection protection

Medical institutes should follow the H7N9 Bird Flu Hospital Infection Prevention and Control Technology Guide (No 6, 2013), and carry out patient isolation, hospital infection prevention and control and medical personnel protection.

staff off at disease control and prevention centers should take care of themselves when carrying out epidemiological investigation and sample collection, and give guidance to personnel engaging in the fowl business and dealing with sick fowl.

The exposed and close contacts management

The exposed management. The exposed refer to personnel who are exposed to fowl with positive H7N9 virus test result and don't take effective measures when raising, slaughtering, selling and transporting fowl.health and family planning administrative departments should work with agriculture, industry and commerce and transportation departments to inform the exposed of their health conditions,notify them to have a medical examinationwhen symptoms like fever (armpit temperature higher than 37.5 degree), cough or other acute respiratory tract infections come up, and ask them to tell their contact history with live fowl to the doctors.

Close contacts management. The close contacts refer to medical staff or patient’s family members who don’t take effective measures when treating suspect or confirmed cases; person who live or have close contacts with patients a day before they show symptoms, or are quarantined or dead; close contacts can also be identified by field investigator. Health and family planning administrative department should track close contacts and put them under medical observation for seven days after their last exposure to patients without effective protection. Once close contacts exhibit fever (armpit temperature higher than 37.5 degree), cough or other acute respiratory tract infections, they should be sent to medical institutes immediately for treatment. Their throat swab should be collected and sent to local flu monitoring network lab for test.

Intensify influenza-like illness monitoring

Strengthen influenza-like illness and unexplained pneumonia monitoring. Every region should step up monitoring, increase sample collection and detection while keeping an eye on the past influenza-like illnesses. Sentinel sites in southern province should collect 20 samples on influenza-like illness and H7N9 bird flu cases every week, and sentinel sites in northern province should collect 20 samples every monthfrom April to september and every week from October to next March, and send them to local flu monitoring network lab for test.