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(CIDRAP News) – The federal government should step up efforts to prepare the nation's key infrastructure industries, such as energy and transportation, for an influenza pandemic, Congress's investigative agency said in a report this week.

(CIDRAP News) –Officials in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam have reported new outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza in poultry this week.

In Bangladesh, an official from the government's livestock department said the H5N1 virus was detected at three farms in the northern part of the country, Reuters reported today. Workers culled about 6,000 chickens, which were buried over the last 2 days, the report said.

(CIDRAP News) – General Mills recalled about 414,000 cases of frozen pizza today after health officials said it could be linked to an Escherichia coli outbreak that has sickened 21 people in 10 states.

Editor's note: This is the sixth 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.

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.

(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.

(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.

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.

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 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.

(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.

(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.

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.

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.

(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) – 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) – 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.