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(CIDRAP News) – Mongolian officials said tests have detected an H5N1 avian influenza virus in several wild birds, confirming earlier indications that the virus had reached the central Asian country.

(CIDRAP News) – Scientists in Texas report they have found a way to detect abnormal prion protein in blood, an achievement that could lead to the first practical blood test for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and similar diseases in living animals.

(CIDRAP News) – Reports today said three rare palm civets that recently died in captivity in Vietnam were infected with an H5N1 avian influenza virus, adding another species to the list of those susceptible to the pathogen.

(CIDRAP News) - Marburg hemorrhagic fever in Angola has afflicted 374 people and killed 329 of them, an increase of six cases and six deaths since late July, the World Health Organization (WHO) said this week.

(CIDRAP News) – European veterinary experts who met in Brussels today concluded there is little immediate risk that wild birds will spread avian influenza from Russia into Europe.

(CIDRAP News) – The British biotechnology firm Acambis recently announced its launching of a quest for the Holy Grail of influenza prevention: a vaccine that would protect people from the virus for many years and perhaps even stave off future pandemic strains.

(CIDRAP News) – The Swiss drug company Roche has pledged to give the World Health Organization (WHO) enough doses of the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu) to treat 3 million people, in the hope that it could help to stave off or delay an influenza pandemic.

(CIDRAP News) – Wildlife researchers and Mongolian officials have reported increasing evidence that H5N1 avian influenza has infected wild birds in Mongolia, though findings are not yet conclusive.

(CIDRAP News) – Two research reports on plague were recently released, one describing the mechanism that the plague bacterium uses to evade the body's immune system and the other describing a potential vaccine that was tested successfully in mice.

(CIDRAP News) – Nursing homes that serve Medicare and Medicaid recipients would have to vaccinate residents against influenza and pneumococcal disease to stay in the federal programs, under a plan announced last week.

Nursing homes would have to give the immunizations unless the patient or patient's family refused or the shots were medically contraindicated, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said in a news release.

(CIDRAP News) – An outbreak of a mild form of avian influenza was reported in Japan today, as the World Health Organization (WHO) voiced concern about the recent spread of H5N1 avian flu to Russia and Kazakhstan.

(CIDRAP News) – The outbreak of an unusual pig-related disease in China might be nearly spent, and evidence continued to point to Streptococcus suis as the cause, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – Russian workers were slaughtering thousands of birds today in an effort to contain avian influenza, while another possible outbreak was reported to the south in Kazakhstan.

Editor's note: This story was revised Aug 17 to add information on funding and a link to the government's request for proposals to supply the vaccine.

(CIDRAP News) – The US government has called for proposals to supply up to 80 million doses of a weakened smallpox vaccine to protect people for whom the conventional vaccine is too risky, according to two vaccine manufacturers.

(CIDRAP News) – Avian influenza has cropped up in chickens near Russia's Ural Mountains, possibly signaling a continued westward march of the deadly H5N1 virus, news services in Russia reported today.

The Chelyabinsk region along the southern end of the Urals is the sixth area in Russia to have been hit by avian flu outbreaks recently, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Reuters. The Urals separate Siberia from European Russia.

(CIDRAP News) – A week-long meeting of Asian nations just finished in Bangkok resulted in consensus that regional stockpiles of antivirals should be amassed for fast use in the influenza pandemic that is widely expected to emerge from the avian flu strain now circulating.

Editor's note: This article was revised Aug 15, 2005, to include additional information regarding earlier related research.

(CIDRAP News) – Both the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) have said in the past day that Tibet has reported its first cases of avian influenza in poultry.

Aug 11, 2004 (CIDRAP News) – Government officials and scientists yesterday recognized the formal opening of construction on a laboratory that will house research on the most dangerous emerging infectious diseases and potential bioterrorism agents.

(CIDRAP News) – Reports from Vietnam say a 35-year-old man who died Jul 31 had H5N1 avian influenza, although official confirmation from the Ministry of Health is still to come.