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(CIDRAP News) – Indonesian health minister Siti Fadilah Supari, who is at the center of an international controversy over sharing of H5N1 avian influenza virus samples, recently claimed that developed countries are creating new viruses as a means of building new markets for vaccines, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report.

(CIDRAP News) – Agriculture officials in Idaho announced yesterday that they were investigating an outbreak of low-pathogenic avian influenza at a game farm in the southwestern part of the state after a federal lab confirmed the virus in pheasants.

(CIDRAP News) – Amid concern about rising resistance to oseltamivir (Tamiflu) in influenza A/H1N1 viruses, a Dutch team this week reported the death of a leukemia patient who was infected with an H1N1 virus that was resistant to the antiviral drug.

(CIDRAP News) – SIGA Technologies Inc. announced this week that it has been awarded a $55 million federal contract to develop a new formulation of its experimental smallpox drug, called ST-246, and carry out related efforts.

The company, based in New York City, said it had previously received a $16.5 million contract to develop the drug, described as "a potent, non-toxic inhibitor of orthopoxviruses."

(CIDRAP News) – Researchers who conducted genetic analyses of hundreds of influenza viruses collected during the 2006-07 flu season found that many different variants circulated in the US at the same time, suggesting that the way each year's epidemic spreads is more complicated than previously suspected.

(CIDRAP News) – GlaxoSmithKline, maker of the antiviral drug zanamivir (Relenza), today launched a program designed to help businesses stockpile the drug as a strategy to protect employees in the event of an influenza pandemic.

Editor's Note: CIDRAP's Promising Practices: Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Tools (www.pandemicpractices.org) online database showcases peer-reviewed practices, including useful tools to help others with their planning. This article is one of a series exploring the development of these practices. We hope that describing the process and context of these practices enhances pandemic planning.

(CIDRAP News) – Some healthcare experts have wondered if large mortality reductions among older people who receive seasonal influenza immunizations are real or if the findings are biased by a "healthy-user" effect. But now a study that more rigorously controlled for confounders suggests that the benefits are overstated.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal officials today lifted their warning about eating raw jalapeno and Serrano peppers from Mexico and said the nation's largest foodborne illness outbreak, which was linked to an uncommon Salmonella strain, appears to be over.

(CIDRAP News) – Following up on a May announcement, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) today published a proposed rule to ban any use of disabled cattle for food.

(CIDRAP News) – Agriculture officials in Benin recently reported that two chickens at a live poultry market tested positive for the H5N1 avian influenza virus, the country's first outbreak since the virus was detected there at the end of 2007.

(CIDRAP News) –US Navy and Air Force officials recently reported a suspension of work in their biodefense laboratories to allow a thorough review of safety procedures, following the Army's announcement in early August that it would review security measures at the lab that housed the work of the late Bruce E. Ivins, whom federal officials believe played a role in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

(CIDRAP News) – A Listeria outbreak linked to a Maple Leaf Foods meat product plant in Toronto has expanded to 26 cases, and 12 people have died, though it was not yet clear how many of the deaths were directly due to the illness, Canadian officials announced yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – With influenza season well under way in the southern hemisphere, one of the three kinds of seasonal influenza virus is becoming increasingly resistant to the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu), the World Health Organization (WHO) reported last week.

(CIDRAP News) – Wildlife officials in Rhode Island recently announced that during routine surveillance they detected the low-pathogenic form of H7N3 avian influenza in wild mute swans.

The virus was detected in 4 of 11 swans collected from the Seekonk River, near the Swan Point Cemetery, about 4 miles northeast of Providence, according to an Aug 21 press release from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM).

(CIDRAP News) – It was secondary bacterial pneumonia—not the influenza virus by itself—that killed most of the millions who perished in the 1918 flu pandemic, which suggests that current pandemic preparations should include stockpiling of antibiotics and bacterial vaccines, influenza researchers reported this week.

(CIDRAP News) – Two national nonprofit health groups are offering local public health departments a shot in the arm for fall influenza vaccination efforts by helping them organize immunization clinics at or near polling places.

(CIDRAP News) – A nationwide Salmonella outbreak linked mainly to fresh hot peppers from Mexico is ending, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said yesterday, amid reports that contaminated shipments had been turned back at the US border well before the outbreak and that some restaurants and grocery stores are still buying the imported peppers.

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved the use of irradiation to kill pathogens in fresh spinach and iceberg lettuce, which were linked to Escherichia coli O157:H7 outbreaks that sickened hundreds of people in the fall of 2006.

(CIDRAP News) – The FBI, seeking to counter scientific skepticism on its investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks, insisted this week that the anthrax powder could have been made by one person and contained no "intentional additives" to make it more dispersible.