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(CIDRAP News) – Hospital residents did poorly on a test of their ability to recognize and manage diseases potentially related to bioterrorism, but they fared much better after taking an online training program, according to a report in Archives of Internal Medicine.

(CIDRAP News) – A respiratory illness that recently emerged in racing greyhounds is caused by an influenza virus that jumped from horses to dogs, disease experts reported yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesian officials have blamed two more deaths on H5N1 avian influenza, bringing the country's reported avian flu toll to six, although the cases have not yet been confirmed by an international reference laboratory.

A 27-year-old woman who died today and a 5-year-old girl who died last week had the virus, according to officials quoted by the Associated Press (AP) and Agence France-Presse.

(CIDRAP News) – Researchers who reviewed 64 studies report that influenza vaccination is only modestly beneficial for elderly people overall, with nursing home residents benefiting more than people living on their own.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed a new human case of H5N1 avian influenza in Indonesia, but said there is no evidence that the virus is easily spreading from person to person there.

The agency said the Indonesian government confirmed a case in an 8-year-old boy who is being treated in a hospital. A WHO reference laboratory in Hong Kong did the confirmatory testing.

(CIDRAP News) – The head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said this week the agency will soon align its rules on animal feed more closely with those in Canada and Europe, signaling a likelihood of new restrictions to prevent the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease.

(CIDRAP News) – The death of a 5-year-old girl and a 2-year-old girl from suspected avian influenza fanned worries in Indonesia today as the government promised to destroy infected poultry flocks, according to news agencies.

(CIDRAP News) – Three workers from Jakarta's Ragunan Zoo have been hospitalized with suspected H5N1 avian influenza, increasing the number of suspected human cases in Indonesia to as many as seven, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesia was on high alert over H5N1 avian influenza today, with at least two children hospitalized with suspected cases and Jakarta's zoo closed because of infected birds.

(CIDRAP News) – US officials this week promoted international efforts to prepare for a potential influenza pandemic, announcing an international flu surveillance partnership and promising aid to Vietnam for avian and human flu surveillance.

(CIDRAP News) – Tests have confirmed that an Indonesian woman who died Sep 10 had H5N1 avian influenza, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today.

The woman's case had been listed as probable on the basis of an initial test. Further testing at a WHO reference laboratory in Hong Kong confirmed the case, the WHO said. The woman fell ill Aug 31 and was hospitalized in Jakarta Sep 3, the agency said.

(CIDRAP News) – The federal government is spending about $103 million to boost its small supplies of avian influenza vaccine and antiviral drugs to battle a possible flu pandemic, health officials announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – National health officials made a major pitch today for healthcare workers and people most at risk for influenza and its complications to get flu shots within the next few weeks.

"There are going to be more opportunities than ever to get vaccinated, so go out and get your flu shot," said Mark B. McClellan, head of the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in appealing particularly to Medicare recipients.

(CIDRAP News) – European researchers have reported what they call the first evidence that low-pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) viruses—not just highly pathogenic (HPAI) strains like H5N1—can infect humans.

(CIDRAP News) – A 37-year-old Indonesian woman has died of suspected avian influenza, becoming potentially the country's fourth human victim of the H5N1 virus, according to news services.

The woman was admitted to a Jakarta hospital Sep 6 and died there Sep 10, according to Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari, as reported yesterday by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) this week stepped up its warnings about the risk of an influenza pandemic, while Thailand reported four new outbreaks of avian flu on poultry farms.

(CIDRAP News) – The nation's system for stopping dangerous microbes at its ports of entry needs to be strengthened through increased leadership and planning and improved communications, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has concluded.

(CIDRAP News) – Meat companies are again free to use most of the small intestine of cattle to make sausage casings, following a change in a federal rule intended to protect people from exposure to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease.

(CIDRAP News) – Tests have shown that floodwaters in hurricane-struck New Orleans are heavily contaminated with sewage and contain dangerous levels of lead as well, federal officials said today.

"The water is full of sewage," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at a Washington news teleconference.

(CIDRAP News) – Japanese authorities have culled 500,000 birds and plan to cull about 1 million more to stop an outbreak of H5N2 avian influenza, a milder form than the deadly H5N1, which has infected a number of backyard poultry flocks in Thailand recently.