News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Chinese agriculture officials today confirmed the H7N9 virus in chickens and pigeons from Shanghai markets, providing new clues about how humans may have been exposed to the virus, which has since yesterday been detected in two more people.

(CIDRAP News) – The first of two controversial H5N1 avian influenza studies to see print suggests that just four mutations in one of the virus's surface proteins may be enough to equip it to spread among mammals, but the findings are freighted with qualifiers.

(CIDRAP News) – In a set of articles published today in Nature, influenza experts say global flu surveillance—especially in poultry and swine—is sorely lacking and needs a major overhaul to make it more sustained, timely, and representative.

(CIDRAP News) – In the influenza literature, it's a given that ferrets are the best animal model for influenza in humans. They show similar clinical signs of disease, such as fever, coughing, and sneezing, and flu viruses that spread among humans usually spread in ferrets as well.

(CIDRAP News) – A national biosecurity board that monitors "dual use" research is apparently worried about an as-yet-published study in which a mutant form of H5N1 avian influenza virus was found to be easily transmissible in ferrets, which are considered good models for flu in humans.

(CIDRAP News) – Today we are launching a new daily News Scan to help our readers keep up with the full range of current and noteworthy developments in emerging infectious diseases, biosecurity, foodborne diseases, influenza, other public health threats, and relevant policy issues.

(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.