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Editor's Note: This article was updated Aug 16, 2006, to correct a potentially misleading statement in the 3rd-to-last paragraph regarding Seattle residents' concerns.

(CIDRAP News) – A major influenza pandemic would make it very difficult for the US healthcare system to maintain routine services, a reality that few Americans are aware of, a public health official said at a preparedness conference in Minneapolis today.

(CIDRAP News) – Speakers at a national conference in Minneapolis today sought to impress business leaders with the potentially disastrous effects of an influenza pandemic without scaring them into thinking that preparing for one is futile.

(CIDRAP News) – As the H5N1 virus spreads, so does the toll of human illness cases and deaths known or suspected to be due to the deadly influenza.

(CIDRAP News) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued new recommendations last week in an effort to push the percentage of healthcare workers who receive influenza shots above the 40% range, where it has been stalled for years.

(CIDRAP News) – The H5N1 avian flu virus is continuing its relentless spread from bird to bird, with individual deaths in some countries marking new territory for the virus and massive die-offs and culling showing how quickly it can become entrenched.

The pathogen has been reported in wild birds in five new countries—Azerbaijan, Nigeria, Greece, Italy, and Bulgaria—in the past week. In addition, an H5 virus has been reported in Slovenia.

(CIDRAP News) – China and Indonesia reported fatal human cases of H5N1 avian influenza today, while Azerbaijan joined the list of countries with outbreaks in wild birds.

In addition, there were reports that the virus was spreading to more farms in Nigeria, which was revealed this week as the first African country hit by the pathogen.

(CIDRAP News) – An analysis of influenza viruses collected from thousands of wild and domestic birds in China and Hong Kong suggests that H5N1 viruses have been circulating in southern China for nearly a decade and have spread repeatedly from there to spark outbreaks across Asia.

(CIDRAP News) – Deadly H5N1 avian influenza was reported on farms in two more Nigerian states today as United Nations officials warned that the virus's emergence in Africa represents a serious crisis.

(CIDRAP News) – Chinese officials today reported the country's 11th human case of H5N1 avian influenza, in a 26-year-old woman from an area where no poultry outbreaks have been reported, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – The H5N1 virus has materialized deep in Africa, killing about 40,000 poultry on a commercial farm in northern Nigeria, according to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

Tests at an OIE reference laboratory in Padova, Italy, yesterday confirmed the presence of H5N1 as the culprit in an outbreak that began nearly a month ago, on Jan 10, the OIE report said.

(CIDRAP News) – A human-derived antitoxin for babies with botulism shortened their hospital stays by an average of more than 3 weeks and reduced average hospital bills by about $88,000 in a randomized trial, according to a recent report.

(CIDRAP News) – US researchers recently published preliminary findings from their sequencing of 336 avian influenza (AI) viruses collected around the world, an effort they say has doubled the amount of public genetic data on avian flu viruses.

(CIDRAP News) – As the number of human cases of avian influenza in Indonesia continues to climb, the country is ramping up efforts to stem its spread.

The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed four more H5N1 infections, including two fatalities.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) tally of human cases of H5N1 avian influenza rose to 161, including 86 deaths, with the final confirmation of 12 cases in Turkey and one in Iraq this week.

(CIDRAP News) – A new test developed by federal experts offers preliminary detection of H5 avian influenza in human patients in about 4 hours, compared with 2 to 3 days for other methods, government officials announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – A pair of new studies suggest that influenza vaccines based on adenoviruses, one of the causes of the common cold, may offer major advantages in the quest for protection from flu pandemics.

(CIDRAP News) – Minnesota cattlemen are facing an economic blow from a once-banished nemesis: bovine tuberculosis.

The Minnesota Board of Animal Health (BAH) announced on Dec 8 that the USDA would drop the state's TB status a notch, from TB-free to "Modified Accredited Advanced." The reduction in status took effect Jan 30.

(CIDRAP News) – A national conference scheduled Feb 14 and 15 in Minneapolis will give business leaders an opportunity to learn from experts about the risk of pandemic influenza and help figure out how their industries can prepare for it.

Meat from deer infected with chronic wasting disease (CWD) has been shown to transmit the prion disease to genetically altered mice, according to a report published Jan 26 in Sciencexpress, part of Science magazine.

(CIDRAP News) – Updated information on a teen-aged girl's death means that Iraq has joined the unenviable fraternity of nations hit by human cases of H5N1 influenza.