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(CIDRAP News) – Dr. Margaret Chan, a former Hong Kong health official who has battled H5N1 avian influenza and SARS, easily won election today as the next director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO).

(CIDRAP News) – Forty-one states and the District of Columbia have reported a total of 3,830 cases of West Nile virus (WNV) infection, including 119 deaths, so far this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – A laboratory study indicates that the antiplatelet drug clopidogrel (Plavix) may limit the action of the antiviral oseltamivir (Tamiflu), which could mean trouble for cardiovascular disease patients who contract influenza.

(CIDRAP News) – The executive board of the World Health Organization (WHO) today nominated Dr. Margaret Chan, the agency's top pandemic influenza official and a veteran of the world's first confrontation with the H5N1 flu virus in 1997, to be the agency's next director-general.

Editor's note: Shortly after publication of this story, the US Consulate in Hong Kong first changed and later removed its Web page advising employees to stockpile a 12-week supply of food and water.

(CIDRAP News) – The US State Department is advising government employees overseas to stockpile enough food and water to last up to 12 weeks in preparation for the threat of a severe influenza pandemic.

(CIDRAP News) – VaxGen Inc., which is developing a new anthrax vaccine for the US civilian stockpile, announced last week it was postponing the latest clinical trial because of potential problems with the vaccine's shelf life.

(CIDRAP News) – Because federal officials expect to keep finding low-pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza viruses in wild birds, they recently announced a new procedure for reporting the findings: posting them online but not issuing news releases.

(CIDRAP News) – A new subtype of H5N1 avian influenza virus has become predominant in southern China over the past year, possibly through its resistance to vaccines used in poultry, and has been found in human H5N1 cases in China, according to researchers from Hong Kong and the United States.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal officials said today they have zeroed in on restaurant tomatoes as the cause of a recent nationwide Salmonella outbreak.

(CIDRAP News) – A group of influenza experts convened by the World Health Organization cautioned today that governments shouldn't stockpile "pre-pandemic" H5N1 influenza vaccines now, because too little is known about the requirements for an effective vaccine.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal investigators have turned up few solid leads in a Salmonella outbreak that has sickened 171 people in 19 states, but some food safety experts are suggesting that contaminated tomatoes and infected food service workers might have played a role.

(CIDRAP News) – In a worst-case influenza pandemic, without enough vaccine for everyone, who should stand closer to the front of the line: a 25-year-old water utility worker or a healthy 75-year-old?

Public health officials may have to make difficult decisions such as this, and a Minnesota health ethics group, in publishing recommendations about pandemic vaccine allocation, hopes to get conversations going now, rather than during a crisis.

(CIDRAP News) – A recent World Health Organization (WHO) report on 10 of the 12 confirmed H5N1 avian influenza cases that occurred in Turkey last winter adds to evidence that children and youth may be particularly susceptible to the infection.

(CIDRAP News) – A 39-year-old woman who was previously listed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as Egypt's 15th H5N1 avian influenza case-patient died today, the country’s state news agency reported.

She is the seventh Egyptian to die of the illness and the first fatality since May. The woman was from the Nile Delta town of Samanoud, which is about 60 miles northwest of Cairo, Reuters reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) plans to issue a report in January on ethical issues raised by pandemic influenza planning, such as how to provide fair access to available drugs and vaccines, WHO officials said today after 2 days of meetings in Geneva.

More than 30 leading experts on pandemic flu, ethics, and public health attended the meetings Oct 24 and 25, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said at a news teleconference today.

(CIDRAP News) – Six more samples of the Escherichia coli O157:H7 strain that killed 3 people and sickened more than 200 who ate raw spinach have been found on a ranch in California's Salinas Valley area, state and federal officials announced yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – Americans are overwhelmingly willing to cut back their activities to help cope with an influenza pandemic, but many worry that they would have money problems if they had to miss as few as 7 days of work, according to a survey from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH).

(CIDRAP News) – A study involving tens of thousands of children has strengthened the evidence that influenza vaccination is safe for those 6 to 23 months old, an age-group for whom the government began recommending flu immunization 2 years ago.

(CIDRAP News) – Researchers from the University of Georgia report that wood ducks and laughing gulls are highly susceptible to H5N1 avian influenza, which suggests those two species could be sensitive indicators of the virus's presence in wild birds.