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(CIDRAP News) – Influenza vaccine manufacturers expect to make and distribute more than 100 million doses in the next few months, millions more than in any previous flu season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.

The predicted total is about 17 million more than the current record for doses distributed—83.1 million in 2003, the CDC said. Last year about 81.2 million doses were distributed.

(CIDRAP News) – Mallard ducks in Maryland tested positive for low-pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza, and initial tests pointed to the same findings in Pennsylvania mallards, federal officials said late last week.

Tests ruled out the lethal form of H5N1 virus that has spread through birds in much of Asia and parts of Europe and Africa in the past 3 years, officials said.

Sept 1, 2006 (CIDRAP News) – The nation's largest public health organization sounded an alarm this week about the public health workforce, citing a current shortage and projecting that the profession could lose up to half of its workers over the next few years.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesia launched a month-long, nationwide media campaign today to warn people to take precautions against H5N1 avian influenza, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – A dog in Thailand's central Suphan Buri province contracted avian influenza after eating infected ducks, according to a Thai researcher quoted in a newspaper.

(CIDRAP News) – No highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus has turned up in any of the 13,000 wild migratory birds that federal and state officials have tested since Apr 26, the US government announced yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today released a list of case definitions for human H5N1 avian influenza infection to improve reporting and tracking of the disease.

(CIDRAP News) – Government-funded researchers say they have developed a test that may enable more laboratories to fully identify influenza viruses than is possible with existing tests.

(CIDRAP News) – Final tests confirmed that two mute swans in Michigan had a mild strain of H5N1 avian influenza virus, not the lethal Asian variety, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – Now that most states have issued preliminary or final plans for dealing with pandemic influenza, a group of experts who looked at the public health strategies in the plans has given them a mixed review.

(CIDRAP News) – The US government announced yesterday the launch of a Web site that allows the public to view current information about testing of wild birds for H5N1 avian influenza.

(CIDRAP News) – Leading medical researchers yesterday announced the formation of a consortium to unlock genetic and other data on avian influenza in the hope of improving the understanding of how viruses such as H5N1 spread and evolve.

(CIDRAP News) – A procedural error at a feed mill might have resulted in contamination of cattle feed with banned materials and caused Canada's seventh case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, the Canadian government said yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – Avian flu experts in two of the countries with the most human H5N1 avian influenza cases to date—Vietnam and Thailand—are warning that the antiviral drug oseltamivir may mask the infection and complicate laboratory detection.

(CIDRAP News) – Canada has identified its eighth case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, just a few weeks after the seventh case.

(CIDRAP News) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has published the genetic blueprints for more than 650 influenza virus genes to launch a new data-sharing program intended to stimulate influenza research.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesia has confirmed its 60th human case of H5N1 avian influenza, this one in a 6-year-old girl who is recovering, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today.

The girl is from Bekasi, a city southeast of Jakarta in West Java, not part of the Cikelet subdistrict, where several recent cases and suspected cases sparked concern about possible human-to-human transmission.

(CIDRAP News) – US health officials broke new ground last week by approving the use of a mixture of bacteriophages, or bacteria-killing viruses, to control the pathogen Listeria monocytogenes on ready-to-eat (RTE) meat and poultry products.

(CIDRAP News) – A third human case of H5N1 avian influenza has been confirmed in a remote part of Indonesia where a number of suspected cases are being investigated, but most of the cases probably resulted from exposure to sick poultry, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today changed the H5N1 avian influenza strains recommended for candidate vaccines for the first time since 2004, causing some experts to question how far the virus has evolved.

The WHO's new prototype strains, prepared by reverse genetics, include three new H5N1 subclades.