News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The World Bank estimates it will cost between $1.2 and $1.5 billion to fight avian influenza over the next 2 to 3 years, a sizable increase since last January.

(CIDRAP News) – Egypt and Indonesia each reported a new human case of avian influenza today, while the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed a suspected case in Azerbaijan.

An 18-year-old Egyptian woman from the northern governorate of Menufiya is that country's 12th victim of the avian flu virus, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported today. She was hospitalized today and remains in stable condition, AFP added.

April 3, 2006 (CIDRAP News) – The deaths of four Egyptians have been laid at the door of avian influenza, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed today, while Egyptian officials' case tally has reached twice that number.

In addition, an Egyptian was diagnosed with avian flu in Jordan late last week, though he contracted the disease in Egypt, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – A second Egyptian has died of H5N1 avian influenza, and the virus may have infected a mink in Sweden, according to recent reports.

(CIDRAP News) – Authorities in Azerbaijan have reported that three people who died of suspected avian influenza were infected with an H5 virus, and further tests very likely will confirm it to be H5N1, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – The H5N1 avian influenza again demonstrated its adaptability by infecting a weasel-like mammal in Germany called a stone marten, according to reports from Germany yesterday.

The marten was found alive but sick Mar 2 on the Baltic island of Ruegen, where three domestic cats were previously found infected with the virus, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) statement.

(CIDRAP News) – Europe braced for further spread of the H5N1 avian influenza virus today in the wake of reports that the virus was suspected in the deaths of two wild ducks on Sweden's Baltic coast and a domestic cat in Germany.

The cat was discovered last weekend on Ruegen, the island off Germany's north coast where H5N1 was first discovered on German soil, according to a Reuters report.

(CIDRAP News) – The H5N1 avian influenza virus has spread to Niger and Bosnia-Herzegovina, media outlets said today, and testing is under way on birds found dead in Switzerland, Pakistan, and Kenya.

(CIDRAP News) – Authorities in the former Soviet republic of Georgia today reported finding H5N1 avian influenza in swans, making Georgia the 16th country to report its first case this month.

Dead swans found in the village of Adliya, in the Black Sea coastal region of Adjara, tested positive, said Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli, as quoted in an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report.

(CIDRAP News) – H5N1 virus has been found in wild birds in yet another European country, Slovakia, while tests of samples from 95 people in India have revealed no cases of avian influenza so far, according to reports today.