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(CIDRAP News) – China's health ministry today reported three new human H5N1 avian influenza cases, one of them fatal and the other patients hospitalized in critical condition, according to a statement from the World Health Organization (WHO).

In the first case, a 27-year-old woman from Jinan City in Shandong province got sick on Jan 5, was hospitalized, and died on Jan 17, the WHO reported.

(CIDRAP News) – Amid growing evidence of Salmonella contamination at a peanut processing plant in Georgia, US health officials yesterday warned consumers to avoid eating any commercially made products containing peanut butter and any peanut butter served in institutions such as schools and nursing homes until investigators learn more about which products may be tainted. The warning does not include peanut butter sold in jars directly to consumers.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) yesterday released an assessment of progress states have made toward planning for an influenza pandemic. The report found that many scored well in areas such as protecting citizens and administering mass vaccinations, but showed major gaps in such areas as sustaining state operations, developing community mitigation plans, and maintaining key infrastructure.

(CIDRAP News) – Picking the influenza strains to put in the flu vaccine each year is always a gamble, given the unpredictable prevalence of different strains, but choosing the influenza B strain has become particularly vexing in recent years.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal officials today said investigators have found Salmonella in the Blakely, Ga., plant that has been implicated in a multistate outbreak, though testing hasn't yet revealed if it is the same subtype and if it genetically matches the outbreak strain.

(CIDRAP News) – The Kellogg Company yesterday pulled its peanut butter crackers from store shelves as public health officials investigate whether any peanut butter–containing food products are associated with a national Salmonella outbreak that now includes 448 cases in 43 states and may have played a role in five deaths.

(CIDRAP News) – Public health officials from South Dakota yesterday reported a swine influenza infection in a 19-year-old male college student, the second case in the United States in the past 2 months.

(CIDRAP News) – The US government has awarded Novartis a $487 million contract to help build a plant in North Carolina that the company says will be capable of producing 150 million doses of cell-based pandemic influenza vaccine within 6 months after the start of a pandemic.

(CIDRAP News) – The manufacturer of peanut butter that has been implicated in a multistate outbreak of Salmonella infections announced a recall yesterday of all of its product made since Jul 1, 2008.

(CIDRAP News) – Workers ages 50 to 64 who get their annual flu shots miss less work and experience less of a productivity drop-off than those who don't, according to a new study, findings that might help public officials lift immunization rates among this age-group.

(CIDRAP News) – A 21-month-old Egyptian girl has been hospitalized with an H5N1 avian influenza infection, the country's health ministry said yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – Minnesota officials today reported a genetic match between Salmonella found in an open container of King Nut peanut butter and a multistate outbreak that has sickened more than 400 people, confirming a link they first reported as likely on Jan 9.

(CIDRAP News) – In a progress report on federal pandemic influenza planning efforts, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says several companies working under federal contracts are on track to develop cell culture–based pandemic flu vaccines.

(CIDRAP News) – A Salmonella outbreak that was first publicized this week has expanded to 388 cases in 42 states, but the cause remains unknown, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.

News reports yesterday put the outbreak, involving Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium, at 336 cases in 34 states.

(CIDRAP News) – Hong Kong health officials reported today that the H9N2 avian influenza virus that recently infected a 2-month-old girl from mainland China has not acquired any genes from human-adapted flu viruses, implying that it is unlikely to pose a major danger to humans.

Editor's note: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Jan 8 that, contrary to this story, it had not activated its emergency network to investigate the Salmonella outbreak and that chicken was not the leading suspected food source. Those items were based on a Jan 7 USA Today online report that the CDC said was later withdrawn.

(CIDRAP News) – Public health officials in two countries today announced new human cases of H5N1 avian influenza, involving a 19-year-old Chinese woman who died of her infection and an 8-year-old Vietnamese girl who is recovering.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) recently reported that laboratory officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have confirmed a third case of Ebola hemorrhagic fever.

Laboratory analysis was performed at the DRC's national lab in Kinshasa, a lab in Franceville, Gabon, and at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa, according to a Jan 2 statement from the WHO.

(CIDRAP News) – Animal health officials in India's West Bengal state recently reported new H5N1 avian influenza outbreaks in two more districts, according to media reports.

(CIDRAP News) – A newly published analysis of oseltamivir-resistant influenza viruses collected last winter in Norway hints that they may increase an infected person's risk of pneumonia and sinus infections, but the small number of patients in the study means the finding is no more than a hint at this point.