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(CIDRAP News) – The authors of a 2007 study of nonpharmaceutical measures used in the 1918 influenza pandemic, responding to a critique from historian John M. Barry, argued last week that there is strong evidence that New York City used isolation and quarantine to battle the Spanish flu.

(CIDRAP News) – A recent study in Cambodia suggests that some human cases of infection with the H5N1 avian influenza virus escape detection because symptoms are mild or absent, according to a report from an international avian flu conference this week in Bangkok.

(CIDRAP News) – Outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza in 15 countries since December 2007 are a potent reminder that the virus is still a global threat, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned today, as officials in Thailand announced they found the disease in poultry again after a 6-month lapse.

(CIDRAP News) – A recent survey suggests that about a quarter of primary care physicians (PCPs) were still prescribing older antiviral drugs for influenza during the last flu season, despite a federal warning to avoid them because of viral resistance, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed that two more people have died of H5N1 avian influenza, a 34-year-old man from Vietnam and a 30-year-old man from Indonesia. Both cases were reported previously.

(CIDRAP News) – Antiviral medications and vaccines are two tools that many government and health officials hope will stall the spread of an influenza pandemic, but each strategy has daunting challenges, according to a new report from Congress's Government Accountability Office (GAO).

(CIDRAP News) – Health officials in Vietnam said today that a 32-year-old man has died of H5N1 avian influenza, signaling the country's first reported case and death of the new year.

(CIDRAP News) – An animal health official in India said today that outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza in the country's West Bengal state have spread to seven districts, as authorities in Turkey announced that the virus struck a village in a Black Sea coastal province.

Editor's note: This story was revised on Jan 23 to correct errors regarding the numbers of clinical specimens and H5N1 viruses submitted by Indonesia to the World Health Organization in 2007.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesia's health ministry said today that a 30-year-old man from the outskirts of Jakarta has been hospitalized with an H5N1 avian influenza infection.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesia's health ministry said today that an 8-year-old boy died of H5N1 avian influenza, the same day the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a 16-year-old Indonesian girl—previously confirmed one of the country's H5N1 case-patients—died of the disease.

(CIDRAP News) – Ukrainian emergency officials today reported an outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza at a large chicken farm in the northern Crimean peninsula, as animal health officials in India continued their struggle to contain poultry outbreaks in West Bengal state.

(CIDRAP News) – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) this week charged that federal pandemic planning efforts rely too heavily on law enforcement and national security approaches, in effect making people, not disease, the enemy.

(CIDRAP News) – Officials in Iran have confirmed their country's first H5N1 avian influenza outbreak in domestic birds, while authorities in eastern India are working on a massive poultry cull amid worries about possible new H5N1 outbreaks.

(CIDRAP News) – Dr. Bernard Vallat, head of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), believes the H5N1 avian influenza virus still has the potential to cause a human flu pandemic, the OIE said today in an effort to clarify news reports of comments Vallat made last week.

(CIDRAP News) – In at least 25% of human infections with the H5N1 avian influenza virus, just how the person was exposed to the virus remains a mystery, according to a report by an expert panel set up by the World Health Organization (WHO).

(CIDRAP News) – A state agriculture minister in India today confirmed that a disease outbreak involving 35,000 recent poultry deaths in West Bengal state was caused by the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus.

Anisur Rahaman, West Bengal's minister for animal resources, told Reuters, "The outbreak is of the deadly H5N1 strain and it has been confirmed to us in a central government notification today."

(CIDRAP News) – An official from Indonesia's health ministry said today that a 32-year-old woman who lived near Jakarta died of H5N1 avian influenza, according to news reports.

Editor's Note: CIDRAP's Promising Practices: Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Tools online database showcases peer-reviewed practices, including useful tools to help others with their planning. This article is one of a biweekly series exploring the development of these practices. We hope that describing the process and context of these practices enhances pandemic planning.

(CIDRAP News) – A research report published last week says that the factors governing whether H5N1 avian influenza viruses can invade human cells are more complex than previously thought and have to do with the particular shape of the cell-surface sugar molecules to which viruses attach.