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You may be tempted to minimize the importance of food-sector pandemic planning because it's not your business. Nothing could be further from the truth.
(CIDRAP News) - Indonesia today reported two new suspected human cases of H5N1 avian influenza, both fatal, as the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed a case in China that was reported yesterday.
Indonesian officials said initial tests indicated H5N1 infection in a 14-year-old boy who died in West Sumatra province on Mar 24 and a 28-year-old woman from central Jakarta who died yesterday, according to Xinhua, China's state news agency.
(CIDRAP Source Weekly Briefing) A severe influenza pandemic could cost the United States $683 billion and plunge the American economy into the second-deepest recession since World War II, a nonprofit health advocacy group warned on Mar 22.
(CIDRAP News) China announced today that a 16-year-old boy died of H5N1 avian influenza, and yesterday Egypt reported that a 46-year-old woman had tested positive for the disease, according to news services.
(CIDRAP News) – Hong Kong officials concluded that a baby girl who was recently infected with H9N2 avian influenza—a strain believed to have pandemic potential—probably contracted it from birds, according to recent reports.
(CIDRAP News) Concerns about possibly contagious airline passengers prompted two recent interventions by Continental Airlines flight crews, one involving a tour group returning from China and the other a high school student with a cough.
(CIDRAP News) - Indonesia's health minister today announced her country would immediately resume sharing its H5N1 avian influenza virus samples with the World Health Organization (WHO), apparently ending a months-old impasse, say reports from Jakarta.
(CIDRAP News) Egypt reported two more human cases of H5N1 avian influenza today, pushing the country's total to 29, while Indonesia reported three suspected cases, two of them fatal, according to news services.
Editor's note: Because of a technical problem, this story was not published until Mar 27.
(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) opened a meeting with Asian health officials in Jakarta today to hear their concerns about access to H5N1 influenza vaccines and discuss solutions that might allow researchers to regain unrestricted access to H5N1 samples.
(CIDRAP News) A diagnosis of H5N1 avian influenza in a 3-year-old Egyptian girl yesterday marked Egypt's 27th case overall and the ninth this year, according to news services.
(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and California officials released a final report today on last fall's nationwide Escherichia coli O157:H7 outbreak linked to fresh spinach, tracing the pathogen to a specific farm and identifying a handful of possible contamination sources.
The outbreak, which occurred in early fall, sickened 205 people and caused three deaths.
(CIDRAP News) Agriculture officials in Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia have confirmed outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza in birds, a first for each country.
The outbreak in Bangladesh struck chickens at a state-run poultry farm in Savar, near the capital, Dhaka, the Associated Press (AP) reported today. Government sources said farm workers had recently culled all 30,000 chickens at the farm after many of them died mysteriously, the AP said.
(CIDRAP News) Indications today are that Thailand will continue to share H5N1 avian influenza viruses with the World Health Organization (WHO), contrary to a news report yesterday.
Bloomberg News reported yesterday that Thailand would restrict access to its H5N1 viruses, and CIDRAP News passed along that report. But a senior Thai health official said Thailand had no plans to withhold samples, according to a Reuters report published yesterday.
Editor's note: Contrary to this story, information obtained Mar 23 from the World Health Organization and from another news report indicated that Thailand had no plans to withhold H5N1 virus samples. See link at end of story for more information.
(CIDRAP News) An influenza pandemic as severe as the great flu of 1918 could cost the United States $683 billion and plunge the American economy into the second-deepest recession since World War II, a nonprofit health advocacy group warned today.
Most people think about possible future pandemicswhen they think about them at allwith a good deal of ambivalence. To communicate with ambivalent people, you need to understand the 'risk communication seesaw.'
Several large, influential food companies and organizations contacted by Weekly Briefing had little or nothing to say about their pandemic preparedness plans.
(CIDRAP News) Thailand today announced that it was joining Indonesia's boycott on sharing its H5N1 avian flu virus samples with vaccine developers and the international health community.
(CIDRAP News) Japan's health ministry today ordered the country's importer of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) to warn doctors against prescribing the drug to teens, because of continuing concerns that psychiatric symptoms might be linked to the influenza medication, according to news services.
(CIDRAP News) World Health Organization (WHO) officials will propose new ideas about producing H5N1 avian influenza vaccines to Asian health ministers next week in Jakarta in the hope of resolving an impasse with Indonesia over sharing of virus samples, according to press reports.
