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(CIDRAP News) – Two more wild swans infected with H5N1 avian influenza were found in Japan this week, and authorities in South Korea said H5N1 viruses found in chickens there closely matched an earlier isolate from swans in Japan.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal agencies that play key food safety roles recently held a public meeting to clarify the obstacles public health officials encounter in investigating foodborne disease outbreaks and to build support for measures to improve the process.

(CIDRAP News) – Bangladesh has become the 15th country to have a human case of H5N1 avian influenza, this one in a 16-month-old boy who became ill in January but recovered, according to news services.

The boy's case was confirmed only yesterday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report quoting Saluddin Khan, a government official. The child is from Dhaka, the capital, the story said.

(CIDRAP News) – A team of food safety researchers, flanked by federal, state, and industry officials, today unveiled a sweeping report on how food safety information is shared and called for new federal policies to make the system more transparent and useful.

(CIDRAP News) – In a move to bolster consumer confidence in the safety of US beef and prevent mistreatment of cattle, Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer yesterday announced plans to close a regulatory loophole that permits some disabled cattle to be used for food.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently offered another antibiotic option for combating inhalational anthrax in children by approving the quinolone drug levofloxacin (Levaquin).

In a letter dated May 5, the FDA endorsed the use of levofloxacin, made by Ortho-McNeil, in children 6 months of age and older. The agency had approved use of the drug for postexposure treatment of anthrax in adults in 2004.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesia's recent announcement that it would immediately begin sharing H5N1 avian influenza genetic sequences with a new public database is being hailed by experts as a promising development, though there is a concern that having actual virus isolates would be better.

Indonesia's decision, announced by Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari, was detailed in a May 15 report from the Associated Press (AP).

(CIDRAP News) – An H5N1 influenza vaccine made by the British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has become the first prepandemic vaccine to be licensed by the European Union (EU), the company announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – Contaminated dry dog food contributed to a Salmonella outbreak that sickened at least 70 people in 19 states in 2006 and 2007, many of them babies, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – A year after the World Health Organization (WHO) called for the development of an international stockpile of vaccines against H5N1 influenza, the stockpile has not yet materialized, the WHO said in a report released today.

(CIDRAP News) – Certain mutations that make the H5N1 influenza virus resistant to the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu) leave it susceptible to zanamivir (Relenza), a finding that suggests nations should not rely on oseltamivir alone in preparing for a flu pandemic, according to a report published by British scientists this week.

(CIDRAP News) – A Salmonella outbreak connected to puffed rice and puffed wheat cereals made by Malt-O-Meal, based in Minneapolis, has crept upward to 28 cases in 15 states, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on May 13.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Labor (DOL) yesterday released proposed guidance on stockpiling respirators and facemasks in the workplace, which encourages employers to stockpile the items because of the likelihood that they will run short during an influenza pandemic.

– ATLANTA (CIDRAP News) – The drive to increase the number of Americans who get vaccinated against influenza may stumble on disagreements within medicine and public health over where vaccination should take place.

(CIDRAP News) – Anticipating that a terrorist attack, influenza pandemic, or natural disaster will someday exhaust regional or national critical care systems, an expert task force recently issued a comprehensive series of reports that takes stock of current capabilities and recommends a surge framework that would care for as many patients as possible but would necessarily exclude some.

– ATLANTA (CIDRAP News) – Manufacturers of influenza vaccine are poised to deliver record quantities of flu shots for the coming season. But unless medicine and public health officials find new methods and venues for getting those shots into the arms of Americans, another record may also fall: the number of influenza-vaccine doses that go unused.

(CIDRAP News) – South Korea's agriculture ministry yesterday confirmed a second outbreak of the H5N1 virus in the capital city of Seoul, which prompted the culling of all poultry within the city.

Kim Yoon-kyo, a city government official, said today that 15,000 chickens, ducks, pheasants, and turkeys that are raised at farms, restaurants, schools, and homes were destroyed, the Associated Press (AP) reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – Authorities in India's West Bengal state today confirmed a new H5N1 virus outbreak in the Darjeeling district, as agriculture officials in South Korea reported that the virus had struck birds in the eastern part of the country, pushing the number of recent outbreaks to 35.

(CIDRAP News) – An antiviral drug being developed to provide protection against smallpox and related viruses performed well in the first test of its safety and activity in humans, according to a report in the May issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

(CIDRAP News) – VaxGen Inc. announced this week the sale of its experimental anthrax vaccine—which the US government pulled the plug on in 2006—to Emergent BioSolutions, maker of the only US-licensed anthrax vaccine.