News & Perspective

Dec 30. 2008 (CIDRAP News) – Health officials in Hong Kong today said a 2-month-old girl who lives in mainland China has been hospitalized at a Hong Kong hospital for an H9N2 avian influenza infection, which typically causes mild illness but is considered one of the viruses that could evolve into a pandemic strain.

(CIDRAP News) – Agriculture officials in Bangladesh said today that they have detected another H5N1 avian influenza outbreak on a farm, the country's fifth one since the virus reemerged in poultry flocks in October.

(CIDRAP News) – Authorities from Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Egypt reported that the H5N1 avian influenza virus has struck poultry again, according to new reports.

(CIDRAP News) – A World Health Organization (WHO) group that met last week in Geneva to solve problems related to global sharing of H5N1 avian influenza viruses made progress on language spelling out the commitment to sharing both the viruses and benefits, a senior US government official told CIDRAP News.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today reported that a 19-year-old man from Cambodia has been hospitalized with H5N1 avian influenza, the country's first case in nearly a year and a half.

The man, from Kandal province, got sick on Nov 28 and first sought care from his local health center 2 day later, according to the WHO report. He is now listed as Cambodia's eighth H5N1 case, of which seven have been fatal.

(CIDRAP News) – Agriculture officials in Hong Kong today confirmed that the avian influenza virus that recently hit a large commercial chicken farm was the lethal H5N1 strain, as authorities vowed to explore potential protection gaps in the poultry vaccine and the possibility that smuggled eggs might be a source of the virus.