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(CIDRAP News) – Indonesian investigators found the H5N1 avian influenza virus in chicken droppings near the home of three people who died of the virus this month, according to a report published yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – A large-scale study of genetic data on influenza shows that viruses of the same strain or serotype have more genetic differences than previously suspected and can exchange genetic material in ways that make them more infectious.

(CIDRAP News) – In a response to Indonesia's first three fatal human cases of avian influenza, officials killed some infected pigs and poultry yesterday, but not as many as they had planned to, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – A Russian official has identified the avian influenza virus that has been killing poultry in Siberia as H5N2, a strain that is not dangerous to humans.

But another Russian official reported to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) yesterday that the virus had not yet been fully identified. The poultry outbreaks in the Novosibirsk region of southwestern Siberia were first reported last week.

(CIDRAP News) – A news report from Russia today said that an H5 strain of avian influenza has killed hundreds of poultry in Siberia, though a Russian report to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said the disease was still unidentified.

(CIDRAP News) – Genetic mutations in monkeypox viruses of West African origin might have spared the lives of people infected with the virus in the United States, according to a recent report.

Though primarily a disease of rodents and nonhuman primates, monkeypox can occasionally spread to humans and cause a smallpox-like illness. In the summer of 2003, an outbreak of the disease occurred in six Midwestern states.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal officials say a new West Nile virus (WNV) vaccine for horses, licensed this week, represents a breakthrough that may lead to important benefits for human vaccine development.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the vaccine is the world's first licensed DNA vaccine—one that uses small pieces of the target virus's genetic material instead of using a weakened or killed form of the whole virus.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) announced today that only one of three deaths blamed on avian influenza in Indonesia this week is known so far to have been caused by the disease, saying test results are still awaited in the other two cases.

Meanwhile, the Indonesian government promised to take firmer measures to control the virus, which began killing poultry in the nation in 2003 but had caused no human deaths until now.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesian officials confirmed today that a man and his two young daughters who died earlier this month had H5N1 avian influenza, though they had had no known contact with infected poultry.

The 38-year-old man and his daughters, aged 1 and 9, were the first Indonesians to die of the illness. Indonesia has had a number of poultry outbreaks but only one previous human case, an asymptomatic one reported last month.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) has decided to stick with the strains of H5N1 avian influenza it chose in April 2004 for use in developing human vaccines against the virus, which many fear will trigger a flu pandemic.

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(CIDRAP News) – A new study indicates that H5N1 avian influenza viruses are becoming less deadly to ducks, permitting them to carry the viruses for days or weeks and spread them to more susceptible birds and potentially to humans.

(CIDRAP News) – Researchers report that the antiviral drug oseltamivir helped mice survive infection with the H5N1 avian influenza virus, boosting hopes that the drug could be an effective weapon if the virus sparked a human flu pandemic.

(CIDRAP News) – An Indonesian man and his two young daughters have died of suspected avian influenza, triggering alarm about possible person-to-person transmission of the H5N1 virus.

(CIDRAP News) – A federal appeals court moved yesterday to reopen the US border to live Canadian cattle for the first time since bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) surfaced in Canada in 2003.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said loads of Canadian cattle may begin rolling across the border as early as Jul 18, in the wake of the ruling yesterday by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

(CIDRAP News) – Another Vietnamese has died of avian influenza and three others have tested positive for the disease, according to reports from Vietnam today.

(CIDRAP News) – The annual invasion of West Nile virus has sickened 25 people in 11 states and caused one death so far this summer, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.

Colorado leads the list with 7 cases, followed by South Dakota with 5 and Arizona with 3, according to an article in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The single death occurred in Missouri.

(CIDRAP News) – The latest report from the World Health Organization (WHO) on the Marburg hemorrhagic fever epidemic in Angola gives significantly lower numbers of cases and deaths than previous reports.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) says it has found no more cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the Texas cattle herd that the nation's second BSE-infected cow came from.

The agency announced 2 days ago that 67 cattle culled from the herd had all tested negative. A hold order on the herd, which has not been identified, was lifted yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued two nationwide alerts this month over orange juice and ice cream that may be contaminated with Salmonella.