Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)

(CIDRAP News) – State pandemic preparedness has improved over the past few years, but gaps remain, particularly in areas that don't relate directly to healthcare such as continuing government operations, maintaining essential services, and coordinating with the private sector, according to a recent report from the National Governors Association (NGA).

(CIDRAP News) – Animal health officials in Germany today reported an H5N1 avian influenza outbreak at a commercial farm in Saxony, signifying the country's first outbreak since December 2007.

The outbreak was detected at a farm in Markersdorf, in east central Germany not far from the border with Poland, according to a report today from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). The report said one bird tested positive for the H5N1 virus.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday approved a new diagnostic test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that can quickly distinguish seasonal influenza strains from an evolving virus that might have pandemic potential in hours rather than days.

(CIDRAP News) – An agriculture ministry official in Indonesia who spoke yesterday at a pandemic planning conference for businesses said the number of poultry outbreaks caused by the H5N1 avian influenza virus is declining.

Agriculture officials in Togo today confirmed that the H5N1 avian influenza virus was responsible for suspicious poultry deaths that had recently been reported in a village in the southern part of the country.

(CIDRAP News) – A government official in Laos yesterday said the H5N1 avian influenza virus has been detected in ducks in one of the country's provinces, the same day Togo's health ministry announced that avian influenza struck a poultry farm near that country's capital.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesia's health ministry reported today that two men have died of H5N1 avian influenza over the past 3 months, marking the government's first official announcement of human cases since early June, when it said it would provide periodic updates instead of case-by-case notifications.

(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) – 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.