Researchers in China and Hong Kong say the Beijing government should use this time to prepare for a likely return of the H7N9 Bird Flu that caused deaths and illness earlier this year.

Only one new case of H7N9 has been reported in China since the month of May.  But the researchers at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Beijing and the University of Hong Kong say the bug could emulate the pattern of an earlier bird flu virus.

“If H7N9 follows a similar pattern to H5N1,” they wrote in the British medical journal The Lancet, “the epidemic could reappear in the autumn.”

H5N1 bird flu emerged in 2003 and has since spread around the world.  The latest World Health Organization data shows it has killed more than half of the people it infected: 375 out of 630 patients.  Many H5N1 cases have been in Egypt, Indonesia and Vietnam.

H7N9, which this year crossed over from birds to humans for the first time, infecting 131 people resulting in 31 deaths.

The researchers say the government needs to dedicate more resources to healthcare in Shanghai and other areas where H7N9 appeared, and prepare for the virus to spread, perhaps even beyond China’s borders.