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(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) – 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) – 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) – 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) – 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) – Reports from Indonesia say officials have confirmed that H5N1 avian influenza infected the 18-year-old son of a woman who died of the infection last week, but the woman's husband escaped the virus.

(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.

(CIDRAP News) – Investigators have tentatively linked the recent Escherichia coli O157:H7 outbreak associated with Taco John's restaurants in Iowa and Minnesota to dairy farms near lettuce fields in California, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

(CIDRAP News) – Inadequate worker-safety protocols probably contributed to the severity of the 2003 SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic in Ontario, a provincial commission said in a report unveiled this week.

(CIDRAP News) – A flurry of H5N1 avian influenza activity continued today with reports of another confirmed human case and several suspected cases in Indonesia, along with poultry outbreaks of probable H5N1 in Nigeria and Japan.

(CIDRAP News) – The husband and son of an Indonesian woman who was being treated for H5N1 avian influenza were hospitalized with possible cases of the same illness today, and the woman died shortly afterward, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed today that a 37-year-old man from China's Anhui province is recovering from H5N1 avian influenza, the country's first case in nearly 5 months, while hospital officials in Indonesia said one of two avian flu patients there died today.

Fear is like a pie (or money): There's usually not enough to go around. If you want people to take precautions, you have to compete for your share.

(CIDRAP News) – The anthrax-laced letter sent to Sen. Tom Daschle's office in 2001 may have affected more people than was recognized at the time, but the antibiotics and vaccinations given to potentially exposed people were highly effective, according to an immunologic study of the event.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a refrigerated form of FluMist, the nasal-spray influenza vaccine, which should be more convenient for providers than the current formulation, MedImmune Inc. announced yesterday.

FluMist, a live attenuated vaccine first approved in 2003, is currently approved for use in healthy children and adults from ages 5 to 49 years.

(CIDRAP News) – Two Indonesians have been hospitalized in less than a week with H5N1 avian influenza infections, the country’s first in more than a month, according to news services.

Indonesia’s health ministry told Bloomberg News yesterday that a 14-year-old boy who tested positive for the H5N1 virus was being treated at Persahabatan Hospital in Jakarta after showing flulike symptoms on Jan 1.