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(CIDRAP News) – Two more patients in Indonesia have died of H5N1 avian influenza this week, raising the country's death toll from the virus to 102 out of 124 cases.

The patients, whose illnesses were reported previously, were a 31-year-old woman from East Jakarta, who died yesterday, and a 32-year-old man from Tangerang, who died Jan 29, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

(CIDRAP News) – European officials yesterday reported more evidence that one of the three types of seasonal influenza viruses is showing resistance to oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and said this represents the first clear sign that the resistant variant can spread.

(CIDRAP News) – School-based vaccination could be a cost-effective option for preventing influenza in school-age children and their families, according to a recent multistate trial.

(CIDRAP News) – Recent studies suggest that an ethanol production byproduct that is widely fed to cattle may make cattle more likely to shed deadly Escherichia coli O157, possibly contributing to the surge in beef contamination cases in 2007.

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 biweekly series exploring the development of these practices. We hope that describing the process and context of these practices enhances pandemic planning.

(CIDRAP News) – Agriculture officials in Saudi Arabia and Tibet reported new H5N1 avian influenza outbreaks yesterday, as India struggled to keep the virus out of Calcutta and Bangladesh officials said outbreaks have spread to yet another district.

(CIDRAP News) – An early report on the seasonal influenza strains circulating in Europe reveals that some H1N1 viruses show signs of resistance to the antiviral drug oseltamivir, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) reported this week.

(CIDRAP News) – Animal health officials in India reported yesterday that H5N1 avian influenza had spread to 13 of 19 districts in West Bengal state, as authorities in neighboring Bangladesh said poultry outbreaks have occurred in close to half of the country's districts.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesian authorities have reported four new human cases of H5N1 avian influenza, two of them fatal, raising the country's death toll from the virus to 100.

A 23-year-old woman from East Jakarta died of avian flu yesterday, and a 9-year-old boy from Jakarta's outskirts succumbed to the disease today, according to a Reuters report.

(CIDRAP News) – A recent study in Cambodia suggests that some human cases of infection with the H5N1 avian influenza virus escape detection because symptoms are mild or absent, according to a report from an international avian flu conference this week in Bangkok.

(CIDRAP News) – The authors of a 2007 study of nonpharmaceutical measures used in the 1918 influenza pandemic, responding to a critique from historian John M. Barry, argued last week that there is strong evidence that New York City used isolation and quarantine to battle the Spanish flu.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed that two more people have died of H5N1 avian influenza, a 34-year-old man from Vietnam and a 30-year-old man from Indonesia. Both cases were reported previously.

(CIDRAP News) – Outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza in 15 countries since December 2007 are a potent reminder that the virus is still a global threat, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned today, as officials in Thailand announced they found the disease in poultry again after a 6-month lapse.

(CIDRAP News) – A recent survey suggests that about a quarter of primary care physicians (PCPs) were still prescribing older antiviral drugs for influenza during the last flu season, despite a federal warning to avoid them because of viral resistance, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

(CIDRAP News) – Antiviral medications and vaccines are two tools that many government and health officials hope will stall the spread of an influenza pandemic, but each strategy has daunting challenges, according to a new report from Congress's Government Accountability Office (GAO).

(CIDRAP News) – Health officials in Vietnam said today that a 32-year-old man has died of H5N1 avian influenza, signaling the country's first reported case and death of the new year.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesia's health ministry said today that a 30-year-old man from the outskirts of Jakarta has been hospitalized with an H5N1 avian influenza infection.

(CIDRAP News) – An animal health official in India said today that outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza in the country's West Bengal state have spread to seven districts, as authorities in Turkey announced that the virus struck a village in a Black Sea coastal province.

Editor's note: This story was revised on Jan 23 to correct errors regarding the numbers of clinical specimens and H5N1 viruses submitted by Indonesia to the World Health Organization in 2007.

(CIDRAP News) – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) this week charged that federal pandemic planning efforts rely too heavily on law enforcement and national security approaches, in effect making people, not disease, the enemy.