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(CIDRAP News) – Ukrainian emergency officials today reported an outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza at a large chicken farm in the northern Crimean peninsula, as animal health officials in India continued their struggle to contain poultry outbreaks in West Bengal state.

(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.

(CIDRAP News) – Officials in Iran have confirmed their country's first H5N1 avian influenza outbreak in domestic birds, while authorities in eastern India are working on a massive poultry cull amid worries about possible new H5N1 outbreaks.

(CIDRAP News) – Dr. Bernard Vallat, head of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), believes the H5N1 avian influenza virus still has the potential to cause a human flu pandemic, the OIE said today in an effort to clarify news reports of comments Vallat made last week.

(CIDRAP News) – In at least 25% of human infections with the H5N1 avian influenza virus, just how the person was exposed to the virus remains a mystery, according to a report by an expert panel set up by the World Health Organization (WHO).

(CIDRAP News) – A state agriculture minister in India today confirmed that a disease outbreak involving 35,000 recent poultry deaths in West Bengal state was caused by the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus.

Anisur Rahaman, West Bengal's minister for animal resources, told Reuters, "The outbreak is of the deadly H5N1 strain and it has been confirmed to us in a central government notification today."

(CIDRAP News) – An official from Indonesia's health ministry said today that a 32-year-old woman who lived near Jakarta died of H5N1 avian influenza, according to news reports.

Editor's Note: CIDRAP's Promising Practices: Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Tools 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) – A research report published last week says that the factors governing whether H5N1 avian influenza viruses can invade human cells are more complex than previously thought and have to do with the particular shape of the cell-surface sugar molecules to which viruses attach.

(CIDRAP News) – Disease experts and preparedness advocates reacted negatively today to comments by the head of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) suggesting that the risk of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian flu virus is minimal.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesia's health ministry announced that a 16-year-old girl from West Java province is hospitalized with H5N1 avian influenza, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported today. This development follows new media revelations about details relating to recently confirmed H5N1 patients in China and Pakistan.

(CIDRAP News) – The United States could be the next country to experience an epidemic of dengue illnesses if the disease keeps aggressively expanding, senior officials from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) warned this week.

(CIDRAP News) – Animal health officials in the United Kingdom today announced that samples from three mute swans found dead at a swan sanctuary in Dorset County on England's southwest coast tested positive for H5N1 avian influenza.

(CIDRAP News) – A British woman who died of a brain disease suggestive of variant Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (vCJD) had a genetic marker not seen in any previous vCJD patients, raising the possibility that her illness represented a new form of the disease that could signal a new wave of infections, according to a recent research report.

(CIDRAP News) – A RAND Corporation study of how well local health departments handle telephone reports of urgent disease cases found that the best performers had a live person answering calls at all hours.

Editor's note: This story was revised Jan 8 to correct information about the location of the test's manufacturer.

(CIDRAP News) – A single test that can identify up to 12 different respiratory viruses, including three kinds of influenza, from one sample has won the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) approval.

Editor’s Note: This article was modified Jan 8 to include more information about the Acambis preclinical study.

(CIDRAP News) – British technology company Acambis yesterday announced positive results for a phase 1 clinical trial of an influenza vaccine that it hopes could guard against seasonal and pandemic flu strains and end the need to reformulate the flu vaccine each year.

(CIDRAP News) – An official from the World Health Organization (WHO) today shared results of initial genetic sequencing tests on H5N1 avian influenza samples from a man who died of the disease in Pakistan that suggest the strain doesn't have the capacity for widespread transmission.

(CIDRAP News) – Animal health officials in Israel today notified the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) of an H5 avian influenza outbreak at a site near Haifa, and media outlets are reporting that final tests have confirmed the virus is the lethal H5N1subtype.

Editor's Note: CIDRAP's Promising Practices: Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Tools 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.