News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Animal health workers in Hong Kong are culling all chickens in the city's markets and retail stores after finding the H5N1 avian influenza virus in three more markets, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – Agriculture officials in South Korea said H5N1 avian influenza outbreaks have been reported in six of the country's nine provinces, while authorities in Japan announced today that wild swans at a two more sites have tested positive for the virus.

(CIDRAP News) – About 9,000 chickens have died and close to 370,000 have been culled in China in the largest of several outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza reported this week in Asia.

(CIDRAP News) – The recent outbreak of H7 avian influenza in North Korea has been contained, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today.

The outbreak at three farms near Pyongyang, the capital, was first reported in March. It involves a different strain from the H5N1 virus that has affected nine other Asian countries and killed more than 50 people in the past 16 months.

(CIDRAP News) – Avian influenza claimed its third Cambodian victim when an 8-year-old girl died in a Phnom Penh hospital Apr 7, news services reported yesterday.

The girl was from Kampot, the same province as Cambodia's first two victims of H5N1 avian flu, said Ly Sovann, head of the Cambodian health minstry's infectious disease department, as quoted in an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report.

(CIDRAP News) – A 10-year-old girl is the latest victim of the H5N1 avian influenza virus in Vietnam, news services reported today.

Nguyen Hai Yen died Mar 27 in Hanoi's St. Paul's Hospital, and tests confirmed her illness on Apr 4, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported today. Nguyen lived in Hanoi, said a hospital staff doctor who wished to remain unidentified.