News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials are in the midst of crafting a framework for funding H5N1 avian influenza gain-of-function studies, and today at a workshop they heard varied feedback from researchers, biosecurity experts, and others.

(CIDRAP News) – Breaking a prolonged silence, the author of one of two controversial studies dealing with mutant H5N1 viruses said today that the virus his team created went airborne to spread among ferrets, but it didn't kill them.

Maryn McKennaContributing Writer

(CIDRAP News) – This in-depth article investigates the prospects for development of vaccines to head off the threat of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian influenza virus. Its seven parts put advances in vaccine technology in perspective by illuminating the formidable barriers to producing an effective and widely usable vaccine in a short time frame.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced today that a new animal disease crisis management center will begin operating in late July at FAO headquarters in Rome, with an initial focus on H5N1 avian influenza.

(CIDRAP News) – The Ivory Coast government this week confirmed the presence of H5N1 avian influenza in birds, making it at least the sixth African country confronting the virus, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – H5N1 virus has been found in wild birds in yet another European country, Slovakia, while tests of samples from 95 people in India have revealed no cases of avian influenza so far, according to reports today.