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(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.

(CIDRAP News) – Avian influenza has surfaced in poultry flocks in Thailand for the first time in 3 months, according to reports from the country.

The disease has broken out among birds at five locations in Suphan Buri province, about 60 miles north of Bangkok, according to several news services. The Associated Press reported that the disease was found in 10 fighting cocks in five villages where outbreaks occurred in 2004.

(CIDRAP News) – The Philippines, previously free of the avian influenza that has spread rapidly across Asia, has reported its first cases.

Government announcements today say the H5 strain was identified in ducks on an isolated farm near the town of Calumpit in Bulacan province, north of Manila. The ducks showed no symptoms; the disease was detected during standard testing when a trader applied to export duck eggs.

(CIDRAP News) – International health agencies said yesterday that their plan to battle avian influenza will focus on educating small-scale farmers, segregating animal species on backyard farms, and vaccinating poultry.

(CIDRAP News) – Some healthcare workers who were exposed to SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) early in the epidemic became infected without ever falling ill, according to a recent report in Emerging Infectious Diseases.

(CIDRAP News) – The recent outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza among wild waterfowl in western China could provide a launching pad to spread the disease throughout Asia and beyond, according to two reports published by leading science journals today.

(CIDRAP News) – International health organizations have come up with a plan to control H5N1 avian influenza within a decade and want more than $100 million in donations to fund it, according to reports from a conference in Malaysia.

(CIDRAP News) – The members of a new government board that will guide efforts to keep terrorists from exploiting the fruits of federally funded biotechnology research were announced this week by Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt.