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(CIDRAP News) – Russian officials announced today that hundreds of chickens at a farm in southern Russia died of H5N1 avian influenza, as international experts met in Bangkok to discuss how to better monitor the spread of the disease in Asia.

The poultry deaths were discovered in the town of Razdolny in Krasnodar territory on Sep 2, RIA Novosti, Russia's state news agency, reported today. The disease struck about 500 chickens.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today recognized five human H5N1 influenza cases from Vietnam dating back to late May, after publishing formal criteria for accepting positive test results for H5 flu viruses from national laboratories.

The five cases include four fatal ones, which pushes Vietnam's H5N1 toll to 100 cases with 46 deaths. The country has the second highest number of avian flu cases, after Indonesia.

(CIDRAP News) – Metz Fresh, a California spinach grower, recalled 8,000 cartons of fresh spinach this week after finding Salmonella in routine testing, prompting a debate on whether voluntary safety rules recently adopted by the California produce industry are working.

(CIDRAP News) – The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced a one-time allocation of $75 million in grants to help states, territories, and four metropolitan areas prepare for an influenza pandemic.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced the approval of a second automated test to screen donated blood and organs for West Nile virus (WNV).

(CIDRAP News) – Further investigation has strengthened the evidence of a link between recently recalled dog food products and human Salmonella infections, US health officials reported yesterday.

Sixty-six people in 18 states have been infected with the same strain of Salmonella Schwarzengrund, and reports of new cases are continuing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a statement.

(CIDRAP News) – The United Nations recently established a small team in Geneva to help implement the Biological Weapons Convention, the first international institution created for that purpose.

(CIDRAP News) – Salmonella Schwarzengrund, a relatively rare serotype that has been reported in 64 recent human illness cases, was found recently in two samples of dog food made by a Tennessee company, according to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

(CIDRAP News) – The full results of a trial of GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK's) H5N1 influenza vaccine were released recently, showing that the vaccine in combination with an adjuvant produced an acceptable immune response at a low dose and may provide cross-protection against nonmatching H5N1 strains.

(CIDRAP News) – German agriculture officials confirmed an outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza at a poultry farm in Bavaria Aug 25, as officials in Vietnam reported fresh outbreaks at farms in three more provinces.

(CIDRAP News) – Norovirus outbreaks in the United States appear to have increased sharply since the beginning of last year, probably fueled by two new strains of the gastrointestinal pathogen, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports.

(CIDRAP News) – Leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States who met at a security summit in Montebello, Quebec, on Aug 21 unveiled a North American pandemic influenza plan designed to share expertise, coordinate public health messages, and overcome anticipated obstacles at national borders.

(CIDRAP News) – An international research team working in Gabon has for the first time isolated Marburg virus genetic material and antibodies from a bat species, an animal that experts suspect may play a role in transmitting the virus to humans.

(CIDRAP News) – A 28-year-old woman on the Indonesian resort island of Bali died yesterday of H5N1 avian influenza, marking the second fatal case there this month, according to Indonesian health officials.

Also today, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed that it has received from Indonesia a sample from the woman who had the first reported H5N1 infection on Bali, a 29-year-old who died of the disease on Aug 12.

(CIDRAP News) – Government officials in Pakistan today announced a recent outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza at a poultry farm in the country's northwest, as Indonesia worked to stamp out the disease on farms on Sulawesi and Italian officials reported low-pathogenic avian flu outbreaks.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 3 days ago cancelled its plan to close seven of its field laboratories, media outlets reported.

(CIDRAP News) – The hunt for the vector responsible for spreading Marburg hemorrhagic fever took global health experts wearing protective gear to the mine entrances in a remote Ugandan forest last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) recently reported.

(CIDRAP News) – The count of West Nile virus (WNV) cases in the United States so far this year remains ahead of last year's pace, but fewer severe cases have been reported, according to the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

(CIDRAP News) – As British veterinary officials continued to investigate outbreaks of food-and-mouth disease (FMD) at two farms this week, worries about possible outbreaks at two other sites in England were dispelled.

Animal handlers at a farm in Kent and a zoo in Surrey reported suspicious lesions in animals, but test results were negative, and the government eased restrictions on livestock movements in those areas.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesian officials said today they have sent a sample from a recent victim of H5N1 influenza to the World Health Organization (WHO), apparently ending the country's prolonged withholding of H5N1 samples.