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(CIDRAP News) – Indonesian officials reported still another human case of H5N1 avian influenza today on the basis of local tests, while the cause of the recent family cluster of cases in Sumatra continued to elude investigators.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) yesterday announced plans to provide more help to operators of small meat, poultry, and egg-product plants in improving their food safety programs.

(CIDRAP news) – The European Commission (EC) reported yesterday that 741 cases of H5N1 avian influenza have been detected among about 60,000 wild birds tested in European Union states since February.

The EC presented its data during the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)/World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) International Scientific Conference on Avian Influenza and Wild Birds, which concluded yesterday in Rome.

(CIDRAP News) – Experts who investigated two clusters of human cases of H5N1 avian influenza in Azerbaijan in March concluded that one cluster marked the first time humans probably contracted the disease from wild birds—in this case, dead swans.

(CIDRAP News) – A 15-year-old boy in West Java has become Indonesia's latest avian flu fatality, according to news reports that cited local tests.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported today that in the remote North Sumatra village that witnessed a large family cluster of avian flu cases, no cases suggestive of H5N1 infection have been detected since May 22.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed yesterday six new cases of H5N1 avian flu in geographically widespread areas of the country, but none associated with the Karo, North Sumatra, family cluster that killed at least six people earlier this month.

Of the six new cases, three have been fatal, raising the number of cases in Indonesia to 48 and the number of deaths to 36, all in 2005 and 2006, according to WHO statistics.

(CIDRAP News) – Member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) agreed today to invoke a set of health regulations related to influenza a year early because of the threat that H5N1 avian flu will trigger a flu pandemic.

The voluntary regulations are part of the International Health Regulations (IHR), which were approved by the World Health Assembly a year ago but are not scheduled to take effect until June 2007.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesian health officials have reported that H5N1 avian influenza caused the recent death an 18-year-old West Java man, brother of a 10-year-old girl whose death was previously attributed to the virus, according to news agencies.

(CIDRAP News) – Eleven new outbreaks of avian influenza in birds were reported in Romania today, as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) prepared for a major conference on the role of wild birds in spreading the virus worldwide.

(CIDRAP News) – When vaccine supplies are limited, should children, young adults, or seniors move to the front of the line for shots? Is it appropriate to remove one person from a ventilator to put somebody else on the machine?

(CIDRAP News) – Scientists investigating a family cluster of at least seven cases of H5N1 avian influenza have asked 33 close contacts to quarantine themselves at home in their North Sumatra, Indonesia, village, according to a Reuters report today.

(CIDRAP News) – For the first time, evidence suggests that the H5N1 avian influenza virus may have passed from one person to another and on to a third, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) official.

Referring to the extended-family case cluster in Indonesia, the WHO's Maria Cheng told the Canadian Press (CP) yesterday, "This is the first time we have seen cases that have gone beyond one generation of human-to-human spread."

(CIDRAP News) – All seven confirmed cases of H5N1 avian influenza in the family cluster in Indonesia involved "close and prolonged exposure" to another infected person, suggesting person-to-person transmission, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – Romanian officials today lifted quarantines that had sealed off more than 14,000 people in Bucharest over worries sparked by two outbreaks of avian influenza in birds, but one small area remained closed, according to news agencies.

(CIDRAP News) – The United States is sending a load of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) to an undisclosed site in Asia for use in fighting a possible avian influenza pandemic, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt announced yesterday.

(CIDRAP news) – Local tests indicate that two more Indonesians have died of H5N1 avian influenza—one of them from the extended family case cluster still being investigated in northern Sumatra, according to news reports.

(CIDRAP News) – Clinicians should use oseltamivir (Tamiflu) as first-line treatment for H5N1 avian influenza, but they should consider giving one of the older antiviral drugs along with it in some circumstances, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends.

(CIDRAP news) – Dr. Lee Jong-wook, 61, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) died this morning following emergency surgery for subdural hematoma (a blood clot on his brain) May 20. He never regained consciousness, according to a Reuters story today.

Lee, appointed director-general in 2003, had been spearheading the WHO's efforts against avian flu, HIV, and other significant infectious diseases.

(CIDRAP news) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed that a 12-year-old Indonesian boy from East Jakarta died of avian influenza.

The boy was not part of the extended family case cluster in northern Sumatra that involved at least six people, five of whom died. Officials are still investigating the source of that outbreak and whether it involved human-to-human transmission.

(CIDRAP News) – The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today it needs $308 million to fight avian influenza over the next 3 years, more than twice the amount estimated a few months ago.

The announcement came as Denmark confirmed its first H5N1 avian influenza outbreak in domestic poultry. In initial reports yesterday, officials said the virus had been identified only as an H5.