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(CIDRAP News) – Nigerian officials confirmed today that a 22-year-old woman died of H5N1 avian influenza, making Nigeria the third African country to have a human case, after Egypt and Djibouti.

The woman was from Lagos, the nation's largest city, a government minister told news services.

(CIDRAP News) – Dr. Anne Francis, a pediatrician in Rochester, N.Y., says her group practice typically has a few doses of influenza vaccine left at the end of the flu season. But as of last week, with the demand for vaccination nearly gone, the clinic still had 580 doses on hand.

(CIDRAP News) – Russia reported its first H5N1 avian influenza outbreak of the season today, as more suspicious bird deaths were reported in Japan and Hungary, where agriculture authorities are battling other recently confirmed outbreaks.

(CIDRAP News) – California agriculture officials are encouraging growers and producers to sign on to a plan to voluntarily bolster produce safety standards, though a state legislator says only laws can force changes needed to prevent future produce outbreaks.

(CIDRAP News) – Influenza shots should be mandatory for healthcare workers, and public health officials should think of seasonal flu as a dress rehearsal for pandemic flu, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) said today as it unveiled a 12-point plan to strengthen the nation's preparedness.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesia’s health ministry announced today that a 6-year-old girl recently died of H5N1 avian influenza, marking the country’s sixth case this year, according to news services.

The girl, from central Java, died 6 days ago in a Yogyakarta hospital, Ahmad Priyatna, an official with Indonesia’s bird flu information center, told Reuters. He said her neighbors reportedly had dead chickens.

(CIDRAP News) – Hungary today announced an H5N1 avian influenza outbreak at a goose farm, signaling the first appearance of the disease in Europe this winter.

Bird flu is 4 problems, not 1. Keeping them straight is a prerequisite to sensible risk communication—and sensible preparedness.

What will the first days of the pandemic look like?

Imagine that the virulent H5N1 influenza virus has begun spreading from human to human in an Asian country. Your employees—like the rest of the world—are watching the situation unfold, and you must react. What do you do and when do you do it?

(CIDRAP News) – Decision makers in commerce and industry can explore how to plan effectively for an influenza pandemic at the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy's (CIDRAP's) second national conference on business preparedness, to be held Feb 5 and 6 in Orlando, Fla.

(CIDRAP News) – The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today that recent poultry outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza have been less extensive than those a year ago but warned that many are going unreported.

(CIDRAP News) – There's no standard playbook on communicating with the public during an influenza pandemic, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is working to educate public health officials and businesses about how to tailor successful messages.

(CIDRAP News) – Margaret Chan, the new head of the World Health Organization (WHO), warned today against relaxing the world's defenses against a potential influenza pandemic, as two more human deaths from H5N1 avian flu were confirmed, one in Egypt and one in Indonesia.

(CIDRAP News) – Health officials in the United Kingdom have found a probable fourth case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) associated with a blood transfusion from someone who unknowingly had the disease.

The case was diagnosed in a patient who received blood 9 years ago from a person who later was found to have vCJD, the UK Health Protection Agency (HPA) said in a Jan 18 statement.

(CIDRAP News) – The H5N1 avian influenza situation in Asia remained active today as Indonesia began clearing Jakarta of backyard fowl to curb the spread of the disease, Vietnam fought a poultry outbreak in an eighth province, and Thailand tested several people for suspected infections.

(CIDRAP News) – Fresh Express, a California company that produces bagged salads and other produce products, announced this week it would provide up to $2 million for research on how to keep Escherichia coli O157:H7 out of fresh produce.

A scientific advisory panel assembled by the company has chosen five research priorities and will evaluate research proposals and disseminate findings, the company said in a Jan 17 news release.

(CIDRAP News) – Two patients who recently died of H5N1 avian influenza in Egypt had a strain of the virus that was moderately resistant to oseltamivir (Tamiflu), the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today, but the finding has not prompted new health advisories.

(CIDRAP News) – In an effort to stretch the nation's supply of vaccines for a potential influenza pandemic, federal health officials today announced contracts totaling $132.5 million to help three companies develop dose-sparing substances, or adjuvants, to be used with H5N1 flu vaccines.

(CIDRAP News) – A virus recovered from victims of the 1918 influenza pandemic kills by replicating so rapidly that it revs the immune system into overdrive, turning the body against itself, a team of scientists report in today's issue of the journal Nature.

(CIDRAP News) – Avian influenza has flared again in the poultry populations of two Asian countries that had enjoyed prolonged quiet periods—Japan and Thailand—as authorities battled spreading bird outbreaks in Vietnam.