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(CIDRAP News) – A new report in Nature cites more evidence that mutations detected in H5N1 avian influenza viruses recovered from patients in Turkey may better equip the viruses to infect humans.

(CIDRAP News) – Chinese authorities today announced another human death from the H5N1 avian influenza virus, raising the government's case count to nine, including six deaths, according to a Reuters report.

(CIDRAP News) – Governments and organizations at a conference in Beijing have pledged $1.9 billion for a global fund to fight avian influenza, well above the $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion that organizers had hoped for, according to news services.

The 2-day conference yielded pledges for almost $1 billion in grants, mainly for poor countries in Southeast Asia, and about $900 million in loans, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report.

(CIDRAP News) – The Swiss drug company Roche said today it would give another 2 million treatment courses of its anitivral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu) to the World Health Organization for developing countries to use to fight avian influenza in humans.

The announcement came as representatives from 90 countries and 20 organizations met in Beijing for a conference to raise funds to battle the H5N1 virus.

(CIDRAP News) – More cases of human illness and death were laid at the door of the H5N1 virus in Turkey and Indonesia today.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday confirmed the death from H5N1 of a 5-year-old boy from Dogubayazit district in Turkey's eastern Agri province. His 14-year-old sister had died on Jan 15, and results on Monday confirmed her death was from H5N1.

(CIDRAP News) – The dominant strain of influenza virus in the United States has unexpectedly turned highly resistant to the two older antiviral flu drugs in use, prompting federal health officials today to advise physicians to stop using them for the rest of this season.

Jan 13, 2005 (CIDRAP News) – Delegates from about 20 Asian countries today concluded a 2-day meeting in Tokyo focusing on early response measures to use if avian influenza shows signs of evolving into a human flu pandemic.

Jan 13, 2005 (CIDRAP News) – The rapid spread of avian influenza across Turkey in recent days has generated criticism of the country's response to the disease and concern that the virus may become too well-established to eradicate any time soon.

(CIDRAP News) – An H5N1 avian influenza virus recovered from a Turkish patient has a mutation that may enable the virus to spread more easily from birds to humans, though the finding's significance for human health is not yet clear, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported today.

Jan 12, 2005 (CIDRAP News) – The federal government today announced the release of $100 million appropriated by Congress recently to help states prepare for a potential influenza pandemic.

The money is the first installment of $350 million included in the $3.8 billion emergency appropriation for pandemic preparedness that Congress passed in late December, said Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Mike Leavitt.

(CIDRAP News) – A World Health Organization (WHO) official says two Turkish brothers who have tested positive for H5N1 avian influenza were not sick, potentially offering scientists a rare opportunity to learn more about how the virus affects humans, according to news reports.

Jan 10, 2005 (CIDRAP News) – Tests in Turkey have confirmed another human case of avian flu, bringing the country's reported total to 15, while Chinese authorities reported China's eighth case, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – A survey conducted in Vietnam in 2004 suggests that human cases of avian influenza may be much more common but less severe than indicated by the numbers of confirmed cases, although the findings are not backed by laboratory testing.

(CIDRAP News) – Turkey has supplanted Southeast Asia as the hotbed of avian flu news over the past few days, with 14 human cases, three of them fatal, confirmed as of today by the Ministry of Health there and cases in birds reported in 10 of the country's 81 provinces.

(CIDRAP News) – Pandemic planning strategies have been brought to a personal level with the release yesterday of a guide from the federal government outlining actions that individuals and families can take to protect themselves.

Jan 6, 2006 (CIDRAP News) – 2005 is likely to go down as the year when avian influenza, powered by a steady rise in human cases and the spread of poultry outbreaks all the way to Eastern Europe, emerged as a high-profile global health issue.

When 2005 dawned, only 45 human cases of H5N1 avian flu, including 32 deaths, had been counted by the World Health Organization (WHO). All of those were in Vietnam and Thailand.

(CIDRAP News) – The sister of a Turkish teenage boy who died of avian influenza Jan 1 has succumbed to the same disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today.

Turkish officials reported the two cases yesterday, marking the first human cases of avian flu outside East Asia.

(CIDRAP News) – Turkey today confirmed two human cases of avian influenza, contradicting earlier statements and marking the disease's first attack on people outside East Asia, according to news reports this afternoon.

(CIDRAP News) – Avian influenza has been ruled out in a 14-year-old Turkish boy who died over the weekend and in three siblings who were hospitalized with him, according to news services.

Tests on the four children were negative for avian flu, according to Turkish health officials quoted in an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report published yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – A new facility built in England to produce MedImmune's intranasal flu vaccine, FluMist, has gained the US Food and Drug Administration's approval, the company announced last week.

The facility in Liverpool will increase the company's production capacity to about 90 million bulk doses per season, MedImmune said in a news release.