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(CIDRAP News) – Chinese health officials reported today that a 24-year-old man from the eastern part of the country died of H5N1 avian influenza.

The man, from Jiangsu province, died yesterday, the provincial health department told Xinhua News, China's state news agency. If the World Health Organization (WHO) confirms the man's H5N1 illness he will become China's 26th case-patient and its 17th fatality.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today announced an outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in Uganda involving a new subtype of the virus that officials suspect was responsible for sickening 51 patients, including 16 who died.

(CIDRAP News) – Many countries have improved their responses to H5N1 avian influenza outbreaks in poultry in the past year, but the disease remains entrenched in six countries, according to a new report from the United Nations and the World Bank.

(CIDRAP News) – The initial epidemiologic report, released today, on the United Kingdom's recent outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza in Suffolk said the source of the virus is unknown but could have been wild birds.

(CIDRAP News) – Romanian veterinary officials today reported an outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza in backyard poultry at a town in the Danube delta, while Saudi Arabia's agriculture ministry announced a new outbreak at an egg farm in a town south of Riyadh, the capital.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) says it is returning its inspections and testing of Canadian meat and poultry products to normal levels after finding no problems during expanded monitoring over the past 2½ weeks.

(CIDRAP News) – Tests have detected no tuberculosis in hundreds of people who shared airline flights with an Atlanta man who flew to Europe and back in May despite having a drug-resistant form of TB, health officials from the United States and Canada have told news services.

(CIDRAP News)

Introductory remarksJohn Barry's commentary

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) Pediatric Advisory Committee voted today to recommend stronger label warnings for two antiviral influenza medications—oseltamivir and zanamivir—that have been linked to reports of neuropsychiatric problems in children and teens, mainly in Japan.

Oseltamivir already carries a warning, but zanamivir currently carries no warning about reported neuropsychiatric effects.

(CIDRAP News) – A World Health Organization (WHO) group that recently met to work out an agreement to ease the global sharing of H5N1 avian influenza viruses failed to resolve the issue, but signaled that work on the issues would continue.

(CIDRAP News) – Sick restaurant workers, including one who vomited in the kitchen, and inadequate cleaning products contributed to a norovirus outbreak at a Michigan restaurant in 2006 that sickened at least 364 customers, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has modified its program of increased testing and inspection of Canadian meat, after finding no problems in the first week or so, a USDA official said today.

(CIDRAP News) – The Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC's) health ministry said today that its recent Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreak has been contained and that the number of confirmed cases turned out to be lower than previously reported.

(CIDRAP News) – A second turkey farm in the Suffolk-Norfolk area of England has been hit by the H5N1 avian influenza virus, though the flock there appeared healthy, British authorities announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – A World Health Organization (WHO) working group will meet in Geneva over the next 4 days to try to solve an impasse over how countries share their H5N1 avian influenza virus samples, a disagreement that pits developing countries' demand for affordable vaccines against the global need to monitor virus changes and develop pandemic vaccines.

Editor's Note: This article is one of an occasional series exploring the development of public health practices included in the CIDRAP Promising Practices: Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Tools online database. We hope that describing the process and context that drove development of these practices serves as a valuable tool for pandemic planning.

(CIDRAP News) – An analysis of influenza viruses collected from North American migratory birds over a 6-year period suggests that wild birds rarely carry avian flu viruses between Eurasia and North America, implying that the risk of the deadly H5N1 virus reaching the Americas by that route is probably low.

(CIDRAP News) – ConAgra Foods announced recently that it resumed production of pot pies brands that were linked to a nationwide Salmonella outbreak in October after making some changes that were prompted by an investigation by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

(CIDRAP News) – Veterinary officials in England today said they suspected H5N1 avian influenza at another poultry farm, as authorities in Saudi Arabia stamped out a large poultry flock following confirmation of the virus at a farm near the nation's capital.

Maryn McKennaContributing Writer

(CIDRAP News) – This in-depth article investigates the prospects for development of vaccines to head off the threat of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian influenza virus. Its seven parts put advances in vaccine technology in perspective by illuminating the formidable barriers to producing an effective and widely usable vaccine in a short time frame.