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(CIDRAP News) Tests of fish and shellfish collected from waters affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita suggest that seafood from the region is safe to eat, federal officials said last week.
Tests of hundreds of samples "showed no reason for concern around consuming seafood from the Gulf region due to the hurricanes," the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in a Dec 9 news release.
(CIDRAP News) Japan has lifted its ban on the importation of American beef, nearly 2 years after the discovery of the first US case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) triggered the boycott.
(CIDRAP News) Two more human cases of H5N1 avian influenza have been confirmed, one in a Chinese woman who has recovered and the other in a 5-year-old Thai boy who died Dec 7, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today.
The cases increase the human toll of the virus over the past 2 years to 137 cases, including 70 deaths, according to the WHO. Exposure to poultry is the suspected cause in both of the latest cases.
(CIDRAP News) – Large businesses should examine their sick-leave policies and figure out ways to limit face-to-face contact, among many other steps to prepare for an influenza pandemic, according to a planning checklist released by federal health agencies this week.
Editor's note: This story was revised Dec 8 to correct the erroneous statement that the World Health Organization had confirmed two more deaths from avian influenza (rather than two cases.)
(CIDRAP News) The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed two more human cases of avian influenza, one in China and a fatal one in Indonesia, bringing the global total to 135 cases with 69 deaths in nearly 2 years.
(CIDRAP News) Although thorough cooking ensures that chicken and other poultry are safe to eat, birds from flocks infected with H5N1 avian influenza should be kept out of the food supply, international health and agriculture authorities said this week.
(CIDRAP News) If public health emergency preparedness were a college class, the federal government would be considered a poor pupil by the nonprofit organization Trust For America's Health (TFAH), which gives the government a D+ in a new report released yesterday.
That grade was based on a survey of 20 leading public health experts, who used 12 criteria to measure preparedness.
(CIDRAP News) State health officials at a Washington, DC, meeting yesterday expressed frustration over problems with supplies of seasonal flu vaccine, while federal officials promised that the government's pandemic influenza preparedness plan will help clear up those problems.
(CIDRAP News) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is inviting comments on its Public Health Protection Research Guide 2006-2015. Individuals can review the guide and offer comments on what future research avenues should be adopted to better protect health.
(CIDRAP News) – State and local health officials from around the nation today voiced qualified support for a federal government plan to hold a "summit" meeting on pandemic influenza preparedness in every state over the next few months.
(CIDRAP News) A test to screen blood and organ donors for West Nile virus (WNV) has won approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after 2 years of trial use.
The FDA yesterday announced approval of the Procleix West Nile virus assay, developed by Gen-Probe Inc., San Diego, and marketed by Chiron Corp., Emeryville, Calif. The test detects West Nile RNA in blood.
(CIDRAP News) Romania has reported three new outbreaks of avian influenza this week, while a mild strain of avian flu has surfaced in North Carolina turkeys, according to news services.
Dozens of chickens were found dead in the southeastern Romanian villages of Bumbacari and Dudescu, which lie outside the Danube River delta, according to Agence France-Presse and Bloomberg News reports. The viral strain was not listed.
(CIDRAP News) Contaminated vegetables and fruits caused more cases of disease in recent years than poultry, eggs, or other food groups did, according to a recent report by the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).
(CIDRAP News) Close to 400 people in Ontario have gotten sick in a Salmonella outbreak blamed on contaminated mung bean sprouts, according to Canadian news reports.
Toronto's health department ordered Toronto Sun Wah Trading on Nov 25 to stop distributing mung bean sprouts because of possible contamination with Salmonella, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care announced the same day.
(CIDRAP News) An Indonesian woman who died in a Jakarta hospital yesterday has tested positive for H5N1 avian influenza, according to officials quoted in The Jakarta Post. Further testing is pending at a World Health Organization (WHO) reference laboratory in Hong Kong.
(CIDRAP News) Researchers have found evidence of Ebola virus infection in three African species of bats that are eaten by humans, suggesting that bats may be a natural reservoir of the mysterious virus, according to a report published today in Nature.
(CIDRAP News) The specter of pandemic influenza raises a raft of questions for businesses, and businesspeople who gathered in Bloomington, Minn., today urged their peers to quickly seek answers to those questions.
(CIDRAP News) The World Health Organization (WHO) today raised the possibility that Indonesia's latest confirmed case of H5N1 avian influenza was part of a family cluster of three cases.
(CIDRAP News) More than a third of the human cases of H5N1 avian influenza that occurred over a 19-month period were clustered within families, suggesting the possibility that some family members caught the virus from others, according to a recent report.
