News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – China has recorded its seventh human case of H5N1 avian influenza, involving a 41-year-old factory worker who died Dec 21, according to the Chinese news service Xinhua.

The victim was a woman surnamed Zhou who lived in Sanming City in the eastern province of Fujian, Xinhua reported today. She became ill with fever and pneumonia on Dec 6 and was hospitalized 2 days later.

(CIDRAP News) – Before adjourning last week, the US Senate passed and sent to President Bush a bill providing $3.8 billion for pandemic influenza preparedness and a controversial liability shield for those who produce and administer drugs and vaccines used in a declared public health emergency.

(CIDRAP News) – An outbreak of Escherichia coli O157:H7 cases in Washington state has sickened up to 18 people, most of them children, and triggered renewed warnings about drinking raw milk.

A report in the Portland Oregonian newspaper today said 18 people, including 15 children younger than 13, are believed to have been infected with E coli O157:H7 after drinking raw milk from Dee Creek Farm near Woodland, Wash.

(CIDRAP News) – US customs agents have seized more than 50 shipments of fake oseltamivir (Tamiflu), the antiviral drug being stockpiled in preparation for a possible influenza pandemic, according to reports published yesterday.