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(CIDRAP News) – The US government's attempt to add a next-generation anthrax vaccine to its stockpile failed because of a premature contract award, unrealistic expectations, and confusion about how the vaccine would be used, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative agency of Congress.

Editor's note: This is the fifth in a seven-part series investigating the prospects for development of vaccines to head off the threat of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian influenza virus. The series puts promising advances in vaccine technology in perspective by illuminating the formidable barriers to producing large amounts of an effective and widely usable vaccine in a short time frame.

Editor's note: This is the fourth in a seven-part series investigating the prospects for development of vaccines to head off the threat of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian influenza virus. The series puts promising advances in vaccine technology in perspective by illuminating the formidable barriers to producing large amounts of an effective and widely usable vaccine in a short time frame.

(CIDRAP News) – A Salmonella outbreak associated with pot pies from ConAgra Foods has increased to 272 cases in 35 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – A 3-year-old Indonesian boy hospitalized in Jakarta has H5N1 avian influenza, the country's health ministry announced yesterday.

Nyoman Kandun, director of disease control for Indonesia's health ministry, said two laboratory tests confirmed that the boy has the H5N1 virus, according to a report from Xinhua, China's state news agency. A Reuters report yesterday said the boy's symptoms were minor.

(CIDRAP News) – The source of Escherichia coli O157:H7 that recently spurred a massive recall of ground beef by Topps Meat Co. probably was contaminated beef trim from a Canadian firm, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced.

Editor's note: This is the third in a seven-part series investigating the prospects for development of vaccines to head off the threat of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian influenza virus. The series puts promising advances in vaccine technology in perspective by illuminating the formidable barriers to producing large amounts of an effective and widely usable vaccine in a short time frame.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of the Treasury this week announced the results of a recent exercise to test the resiliency of the nation's financial services sector in an influenza pandemic, revealing that few firms were well prepared and most needed to improve their all-hazards plans.

Editor's note: This is the second in a seven-part series investigating the prospects for development of vaccines to head off the threat of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian influenza virus. The series puts promising advances in vaccine technology in perspective by illuminating the formidable barriers to producing large amounts of an effective and widely usable vaccine in a short time frame.

(CIDRAP News) – Apparently healthy domestic geese and ducks in Europe may be harboring the H5N1 avian influenza virus, posing a risk to other poultry and to humans who have contact with them, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned in a statement yesterday.

Editor's note: This is the bibliography to a seven-part series launched October 25, 2007, investigating the prospects for development of vaccines to head off the threat of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian influenza virus. The series puts advances in vaccine technology in perspective by illuminating the formidable barriers to producing an effective and widely usable vaccine in a short time frame.

(CIDRAP News) – A federal advisory committee yesterday endorsed FluMist, the nasal-spray form of seasonal influenza vaccine, as a good option for children aged 2 through 4 years.

Editor's note: This is the first in a seven-part series investigating the prospects for development of vaccines to head off the threat of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian influenza virus. The series puts advances in vaccine technology in perspective by illuminating the formidable barriers to producing an effective and widely usable vaccine in a short time frame.

(CIDRAP News) – A federal interagency working group yesterday released a draft report detailing how the government would allocate limited vaccine supplies if a severe influenza pandemic grips the United States, offering a tiered approach that flags key health and public safety personnel and children as top priorities.

(CIDRAP News) – A health ministry official in Indonesia said yesterday that a 4-year-old girl from Banten province died Oct 22 of H5N1 avian influenza.

Lily Sulistyowati, a health ministry spokeswoman, said the girl was hospitalized 2 days before her death, according to a Reuters report yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today estimated that by 2010 the world may be equipped to make enough pandemic influenza vaccine to immunize 4.5 billion people—vastly more than in previous projections, though still well short of the world's population of 6.7 billion.

(CIDRAP News) – Officials from the US Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) today unveiled a host of actions that the agency hopes will blunt a recent spike in Escherichia coli outbreaks involving ground beef.

(CIDRAP News) – The White House recently issued a lengthy homeland security directive aimed at bolstering the response of federal, state, and local public health systems to national emergencies such as bioterrorist attacks, influenza pandemics, and natural disasters.

(CIDRAP News) – Scientists investigating why seasons drive annual influenza epidemics have charted how low humidity and cold temperatures contribute to the spread of the disease in laboratory animals.

The research group, from Mt Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, published their findings yesterday in the October issue of Public Library of Science Pathogens (PLoS Pathogens).

(CIDRAP News) – A study on the effects of the H5N1 avian influenza virus on small land birds suggests it is often lethal in sparrows but has lesser effects on starlings and pigeons and does not readily spread to other birds of the same species.

However, the researchers say their findings also suggest that sparrows and starlings could potentially spread the virus to poultry and mammals.