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(CIDRAP News) – The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) predicted today that climate change will increase disease outbreaks by a variety of mechanisms and threaten human health in other ways.

(CIDRAP News) – Brazil's health ministry said this week that it has asked the military to help combat mosquitoes that spread dengue fever, as the number of sick patients with the disease grew to at least 55,000 so far this year.

Though dengue fever is common in Brazil, officials have said this year's outbreak is the worst in recent memory, averaging 1.4 new cases per minute, according to a report today from CNN.

(CIDRAP News) – Agriculture officials in South Korea today confirmed that large numbers of chicken deaths at a commercial farm in the southwestern part of the country were caused by H5N1 avian influenza.

(CIDRAP News) – The influenza epidemic in the United States continued its late-season decline last week, with only seven states still reporting widespread flu activity, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed two more cases of H5N1 avian influenza from a family cluster that surfaced in Pakistan last fall, supporting the previous finding that the virus probably spread among four brothers but went no further.

(CIDRAP News) – China's State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) yesterday approved the country's first prepandemic H5N1 influenza vaccine, an inactivated whole-virus product made by Sinovac, a Beijing-based biotechnology company.

(CIDRAP News) – State shares of federal spending to combat public health problems ranging from bioterrorism to obesity vary widely, with midwestern states generally getting the slimmest slices, the nonprofit group Trust for America's Health (TFAH) reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced it is seeking public and stakeholder comments on the food safety plan that it proposed in November to address concerns about foodborne illness and problems with imported products.

(CIDRAP News) – As expected, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) last week began publishing the names of broiler chicken plants that have had trouble with Salmonella, listing 21 facilities where more than 10% of samples were found contaminated in recent tests.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesia's health ministry today announced fatal H5N1 avian influenza infections in two young people, aged 11 and 15, and said a 22-month-old girl is hospitalized with an H5N1 infection.

If the World Health Organization (WHO) confirms the three cases, its human H5N1 count for Indonesia will reach 132 cases with 107 deaths.

(CIDRAP News) – Water quality officials in Colorado said today that the pathogen that contaminated the city of Alamosa's water system is Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium, which they said might suggest a wild animal source of the pathogen.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) plans to hold a public meeting Apr 9 and 10 to gather major stakeholders to consider the agency's next moves in the battle against Escherichia coli O157:H7 in beef.

In a news release yesterday, USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety Dr. Richard Raymond said the last significant reductions in E coli contamination and related illnesses occurred early in this decade.

(CIDRAP News) – Animal health officials in Switzerland today said samples from an asymptomatic duck were positive for H5N1 avian influenza, as officials in India announced a poultry outbreak in another district in West Bengal state.

(CIDRAP News) – High concentrations of ducks, rice fields, and human populations—rather than chickens—pose the highest risk of sparking deadly H5N1 avian influenza outbreaks in Southeast Asia, according to a recent study.

(CIDRAP News) – The first of three US-funded supply stockpiles aimed at helping authorities in Asia stamp out avian influenza outbreaks opened near Bangkok today.

Eric John, the US ambassador to Thailand, spoke at a ceremony to open a Regional Distribution Center (RDC) in Chachoengsao province, in eastern Thailand, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – Recent pandemic influenza response exercises have helped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) improve its tools for making policy decisions quickly, according to senior CDC officials.

(CIDRAP News) – State and federal public health officials are managing two large Salmonella outbreaks, one linked to contaminated groundwater that has sickened as many as 216 people in Alamosa, Colo., and another that is apparently connected to imported Honduran cantaloupe and involves 59 illnesses in 16 states and Canada.

(CIDRAP News) – A progress report released today says the US government has stockpiled enough prepandemic H5N1 influenza vaccine for 13 million people, more than double the number listed in the previous report, issued last July.

(CIDRAP News) – Veterinary officials in Turkey have confirmed an H5N1 avian influenza outbreak in the western part of the country near the border with Greece, according to a report yesterday from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

– ATLANTA (CIDRAP News) – Serious microbial threats, including drug-resistant influenza and foodborne pathogens, remain stubbornly persistent even as unpredictable new threats are emerging, researchers said this week at the leading international conference on new and resurgent infectious diseases.