News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The First International Conference on Avian Influenza in Humans held in Paris this week brought reports on a possible new treatment for avian flu symptoms, the potential global economic impact of a pandemic, and plans for a task force to coordinate Europe's response to the disease.

(CIDRAP News) – The number of deaths in a Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) outbreak in Turkey has increased to 20, with a total of 242 cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported yesterday.

Since WHO's last update on the outbreak on Jun 30 there have been 92 new cases and 9 new deaths. One of the fatalities involved a healthcare worker who acquired the infection while treating a patient with CCHF.

(CIDRAP News) – Afghanistan confirmed yesterday that poultry deaths at two farms in the eastern part of the country were caused by highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza.

(CIDRAP News) – A recent outbreak of the debilitating tropical disease known as chikungunya fever in northern Italy apparently marks the mosquito-borne infection's first foothold in Europe, according to European health authorities.

Editor's note: This is the fifth in a seven-part series investigating the prospects for development of vaccines to head off the threat of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian influenza virus. The series puts promising advances in vaccine technology in perspective by illuminating the formidable barriers to producing large amounts of an effective and widely usable vaccine in a short time frame.

(CIDRAP News) – Health experts who investigated Europe's first chikungunya outbreak involving transmission by local mosquitoes recently reported that cases could occur again next spring unless vigorous mosquito surveillance and eradication measures are used to control the disease in Italyand prevent its spread to other parts of Europe.

Maryn McKennaContributing Writer

(CIDRAP News) – This in-depth article investigates the prospects for development of vaccines to head off the threat of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian influenza virus. Its seven parts put advances in vaccine technology in perspective by illuminating the formidable barriers to producing an effective and widely usable vaccine in a short time frame.

(CIDRAP News) – A World Health Organization (WHO) working group will meet in Geneva over the next 4 days to try to solve an impasse over how countries share their H5N1 avian influenza virus samples, a disagreement that pits developing countries' demand for affordable vaccines against the global need to monitor virus changes and develop pandemic vaccines.