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Editor's note: Contrary to this story, information obtained Mar 23 from the World Health Organization and from another news report indicated that Thailand had no plans to withhold H5N1 virus samples. See link at end of story for more information.
(CIDRAP News) Thailand today announced that it was joining Indonesia's boycott on sharing its H5N1 avian flu virus samples with vaccine developers and the international health community.
Several large, influential food companies and organizations contacted by Weekly Briefing had little or nothing to say about their pandemic preparedness plans.
(CIDRAP News) An influenza pandemic as severe as the great flu of 1918 could cost the United States $683 billion and plunge the American economy into the second-deepest recession since World War II, a nonprofit health advocacy group warned today.
(CIDRAP News) Japan's health ministry today ordered the country's importer of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) to warn doctors against prescribing the drug to teens, because of continuing concerns that psychiatric symptoms might be linked to the influenza medication, according to news services.
(CIDRAP News) World Health Organization (WHO) officials will propose new ideas about producing H5N1 avian influenza vaccines to Asian health ministers next week in Jakarta in the hope of resolving an impasse with Indonesia over sharing of virus samples, according to press reports.
(CIDRAP News) – Interpol's top official said yesterday that evidence collected from terrorists suggests that international law enforcement agencies should be ready to respond to chemical and biological attacks.
(CIDRAP News) Hong Kong officials have reported that a 9-month-old girl is infected with the strain of avian influenza known as A/H9N2, which has caused mild human illness in the city three times before and is considered capable of evolving into a pandemic strain.
(CIDRAP News) Health experts gathered today at a World Health Organization (WHO) conference in southern Turkey to discuss findings in patients who have H5N1 infections and identify areas for future research on treatment, according to news services.
(CIDRAP News) – A 2-year-old Indiana boy is in critical condition in a Chicago hospital with eczema vaccinatum, a rare type of vaccinia virus skin infection that he contracted through contact with his father, a soldier who recently had a smallpox shot.
(CIDRAP News) Indonesia recently announced two new H5N1 avian influenza deaths, and Egypt today said a 2-year-old boy tested positive for the disease, as the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed two other cases: a Laotian woman who died and a 10-year-old Egyptian girl who is recovering.
(CIDRAP News) The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said yesterday it would step up its antismuggling efforts and monitoring of live bird markets this year to protect the country from H5N1 avian influenza.
The agency plans to more than double the number of special operations to seize banned poultry products and will expand the monitoring of live bird markets from 12 states to 29 or 30, officials said at a press briefing yesterday afternoon.
Exercises—whether simple or complex—can greatly help a business prepare, regardless of its stage of pandemic planning.
Weekly Briefing interviewed pandemic preparedness planners from two Fortune 500 companies to find out how they are using exercises and what they are learning. For both, scenarios changed as the exercise progressed. We present one here. Look for the second one in an upcoming article on designing, conducting, and evaluating tabletop exercises.
(CIDRAP News) Egyptian authorities reported a case of H5N1 avian influenza in a 10-year-old girl yesterday, marking the country's seventh case this year and 25th overall.
The girl was admitted to a hospital in Aswan, 450 kilometers south of Cairo, Mar 13, with fever and muscle pains, according to a Reuters report based on information from MENA, the state news agency.
(CIDRAP News) Indonesia vowed today not to share H5N1 avian influenza virus samples with the World Health Organization (WHO) until it has a "legally binding" guarantee that the samples won't be used to develop vaccines that the country can't afford, according to news services.
(CIDRAP News) The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today issued a pandemic influenza preparedness plan that defines the agency's current role in federal pandemic planning, such as expediting the review of new vaccines and antivirals, and spells out work it will do in areas such as food safety and targeting counterfeit drugs.
Editor's note: This story was revised Mar 14 to correct a misquote, introduced in editing, that was attributed to Michael T. Osterholm and to include qualifying details that were omitted from the earlier version.
Editor's note: This story was revised Mar 13 to list the correct title for Nega Beru, PhD, director of the Office of Food Safety in the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
(CIDRAP News) The accumulation of human cases of H5N1 avian influenza continued with the reporting of one case each in Egypt and Indonesia in the past 2 days.
Officials in Egypt said a 4-year-old boy from the Nile delta town of Daqahliya tested positive yesterday, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report published yesterday. The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the case in a notice today.
