News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The United States is pledging 20 million doses of smallpox vaccine to a global stockpile managed by the World Health Organization (WHO), Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy Thompson announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – Chinese health officials confirmed yesterday that H5N1 avian influenza had been found in pigs there in 2003 but says no such findings have occurred in 2004. They also stated that the occurrence had been made public earlier in the year, although the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says there has been no official report of the disease in pigs.

Editor's note: This story was revised Aug 13, 2004, to include additional information from the World Health Organization.

(CIDRAP News) – Three people in Vietnam died recently of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, the Associated Press (AP) reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – Experts in Vietnam confirmed today that avian influenza has spread to an 11th province, the southern Mekong Delta province of Long An, a major poultry breeding area, according to news service reports.

(CIDRAP News) – The General Accounting Office (GAO) has urged federal agencies to step up their efforts to determine if the use of certain antibiotics in animals endangers human health by making bacteria resistant to those antibiotics.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed today that it has licensed two different rapid screening tests for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) for use in USDA laboratories.

(CIDRAP News) – Animal disease outbreaks and concerns, including avian influenza and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), are currently reducing global meat and animal exports by about one third, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – Thailand and Cambodia joined the list of countries affected by highly pathogenic avian influenza today as both human and poultry cases were confirmed in Thailand and a poultry outbreak was reported in Cambodia.

(CIDRAP News) – The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said this week that the case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the United States signals that many countries need to strengthen their BSE-control programs.