Outbreak patterns of the novel avian influenza (H7N9)

• The global patterns and the scaling regional distribution of H7N9 human cases are analyzed.
• CNENN method is proposed to analyze the spatio-temporal property of H7N9 outbreaks.
• The two-regime scaling property of the edge-lengths of CNENN of infected cities is observed.
• We find that several islands with heterogeneous risk distribute in a large field.

The attack of novel avian influenza (H7N9) in East China caused a serious health crisis and public panic. In this paper, we empirically analyze the onset patterns of human cases of the novel avian influenza and observe several spatial and temporal properties that are similar to other infectious diseases. More specifically, using the empirical analysis and modeling studies, we find that the spatio-temporal network that connects the cities with human cases along the order of outbreak timing emerges two-regime-power-law edge-length distribution, indicating the picture that several islands with higher and heterogeneous risk straggle in East China. The proposed method is applicable to the analysis of the spreading situation in the early stage of disease outbreak using quite limited dataset.