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(CIDRAP News) The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued two reports that address avian and pandemic influenza planning last week, one examining how well the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is prepared to respond to avian flu outbreaks and the other assessing efforts by US and international agencies to help vulnerable countries.
(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently released a new software tool to make it easier and quicker for food industry facilities to assess their risk of attacks involving biological, chemical, or radiological weapons.
(CIDRAP News) – Limited supplies of prepandemic influenza vaccine may prevent more illness cases overall if they are administered to more people in lower-than-recommended doses, University of Hong Kong researchers contend in a study published this month in Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine.
(CIDRAP News) The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed two H5N1 avian influenza cases, one in a 4-year-old Egyptian boy and the other in a 3-year-old Indonesian girl.
The boy is from Qena governorate in southern Egypt. He got sick on Jun 20 and was admitted to the hospital the next day, where he is in stable condition, according to a WHO statement.
(CIDRAP News) Six wild birds in Germany have tested positive for the lethal strain of H5N1 avian influenza in the virus's first appearance in the country since last August, according to news services.
TORONTO (CIDRAP News) Scientists are uncovering naturally occurring resistance in influenza to the antiviral drugs that can prevent or treat it, potentially complicating plans by international authorities and many countries to build large drug stockpiles as a hedge against a pandemic.
An official in the west African country of Togo confirmed today that poultry have tested positive for the H5N1 avian influenza virus, raising the number of African nations hit by the virus to 10.
(CIDRAP News) A study from the University of Iowa suggests that veterinarians who work with poultry have a significantly higher risk of infection with avian influenza, compared with nonveterinarians.
TORONTO (CIDRAP News) Declining public interest in the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza and its pandemic potential has sparked alarm among animal-health experts, who worry that shifting priorities will derail the funding still needed to control the disease in birds.
(CIDRAP News) Agriculture officials in the Czech Republic today confirmed the country's first H5N1 avian influenza outbreak in poultry, while Vietnamese officials announced the death of another human H5N1 patient, the country's second in 2 weeks.
(CIDRAP News) The company that markets oseltamivir (Tamiflu) in Japan has announced it will launch new studies to explore whether the antiviral drug contributes to adverse psychiatric and neurologic events in teenagers.
(CIDRAP News) – US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Mike Leavitt has announced plans to appoint a 13-member panel to advise him on biodefense issues, including chemical, biological, nuclear, and radiological threats to public health.
(CIDRAP News) – A series of illness outbreaks linked to tomatoes over the last decade prompted the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to announce last week an initiative to explore contamination causes and develop better guidance to reduce the number of tomato-related illnesses.
TORONTO (CIDRAP News) The continuing debate over developing countries' ability to afford pandemic-influenza vaccines has produced a disturbing complication: the possibility that Indonesia and other countries affected by H5N1 avian flu will assert legal ownership of the viral isolates on which the vaccines would be based.
TORONTO (CIDRAP News) Ten years after H5N1 avian influenza first began to raise fears of a potential pandemic, the world has a stronger set of tools to contain that virus and similar threats, but also a fresh awareness of humanity's vulnerability to fast-spreading diseases, experts said yesterday at an international conference on flu.
(CIDRAP News) A Vietnamese health ministry official announced 2 days ago that a 20-year-old man had died of H5N1 avian influenza, marking the country's first death from the disease in about 18 months.
Trinh Quan Huan, Vietnam's vice health minister, told Vietnam News Agency (VNA) that the man fell ill on Jun 2 and died on Jun 10, two days after he was hospitalized, according to an Associated Press (AP) report today.
(CIDRAP News) Indonesia's toll of people struck by H5N1 avian influenza has risen to 100, including 80 deaths, with the report that a 26-year-old man from Sumatra died of the disease on Jun 12.
(CIDRAP News) – The revised International Health Regulations, substantially updated for the first time since 1969, take effect today, aiming to help protect the world from a host of emerging diseases and health threats such as pandemic influenza and bioterrorism.
Far from being fatigued by pandemic warnings, the public is just beginning to hear the message. As planners, we're the ones at risk of pandemic fatigue, as we slog our way forward.
(CIDRAP News) – Vical Inc. has been awarded a $6 million federal grant to develop a DNA vaccine manufacturing process that the company says may dramatically speed up production of vaccines for influenza and other diseases.
