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(CIDRAP News) – The first fully automated test to screen donors of blood, tissue, and organs for West Nile virus (WNV) was recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

(CIDRAP News) – Federal officials tracking a large Salmonella outbreak linked to certain peanut butter brands announced that the number of sickened patients has grown by 55 to a total of 425 cases in 44 states, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a press release this week.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the Sep 11 attacks, and Hurricane Katrina have given many senior executives a small taste of the economic devastation that unforeseen localized events can wreak on a company.

Some pandemic influenza preparedness planners start out with an advantage. Their company culture supports disaster preparedness and senior executives have educated themselves on the threat—or the CEO "has a certain degree of paranoia" as Boyd George, CEO of the Hickory, NC–based grocery supplier Alex Lee, puts it. He had read a book about the 1918 influenza pandemic that alarmed him.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed the first fatal case of H5N1 avian influenza in Laos, involving a 15-year-old girl, while Chinese officials have denied new research claims that several strains of the virus originated in Guangdong province.

Michael Evangelides, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP, extracted the following information from three surveys of corporate preparedness conducted in 2005 and 2006 by Deloitte's Center for Health Solutions and Deloitte Consulting with guidance from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP). Among the executives he surveyed, Evangelides found:

The pandemic worst case is:

(a) Truly horrific(b) Truly unlikely(c) Truly worth planning for(d) All of the above

The right answer: (d) All of the above.

(CIDRAP News) – Only about 29% of the 6.5 million American children with asthma, a group at risk for influenza complications, received flu shots in the 2004-05 season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal officials recently proposed a timetable to begin implementing a new meat and poultry inspection system designed to reduce foodborne illnesses by focusing more attention on high-risk facilities and those with poor safety records.

(CIDRAP News) – Some professors at the University of Iowa think that a kind of betting system may help predict the timing and extent of the next influenza pandemic, and a large health foundation is betting they are right.

Editor's note: This story was revised Mar 7 to clarify information about global influenza vaccine production capacity.

(CIDRAP News) – A new analysis of research into the 1918 influenza pandemic, undertaken to determine whether historical accounts can illuminate planning for possible future pandemics, reveals a surprising number of enduring mysteries.

(CIDRAP News) – A 42-year-old woman from Laos' Vientiane province who died yesterday probably had H5N1 avian influenza, according to World Health Organization (WHO) officials. Confirmation of the case would mark the country's first human death from the disease.

(CIDRAP News) – Following 25 cases of norovirus infection in people who ate raw oysters from San Antonio Bay in Texas, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned against eating raw oysters taken from the bay after Feb 1.

The patients ate raw oysters at a Maryland event the weekend of Feb 9 to 11, the FDA said in a Mar 2 news release. Patients tested by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene were found to have the virus.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials are using an analysis of an Escherichia coli O157:H7 outbreak that involved 18 cases in December 2005 to remind people of the dangers of drinking unpasteurized milk.

(CIDRAP News) – A special committee of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) is studying questions about the role of equipment such as masks, gowns, and gloves in protecting healthcare workers during an influenza pandemic and is expected to release a report in September.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed two cases of H5N1 avian influenza, one in Egypt and one in China, while stating that a disagreement with Indonesia about sharing H5N1 virus samples has not yet been fully resolved.

(CIDRAP News) – Investigators have found Salmonella enterica in samples collected at a Sylvester, Ga., ConAgra plant that made the Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter linked to an illness outbreak involving 370 people in 42 states, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – The number of people sickened in a nationwide Salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter grew by 41, to a total of 370 in 42 states, since the last update a week ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – A recent study has raised expectations that simple surgical masks might offer a reasonably good substitute for N-95 respirators for healthcare workers seeking protection from airborne viruses, but others say the study is seriously flawed.