Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)

(CIDRAP News) – Wild ducks in Montana were found to be carrying what may be an H5N1 avian influenza virus, but not the lethal Asian strain of H5N1, US officials announced yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – South Korea said last week that five workers who helped cull poultry nearly 3 years ago showed evidence of past infection with H5N1 avian influenza though they had never been ill.

The Sep 15 report by South Korea's Yonhap news agency said the five workers had tested positive for antibodies to the H5N1 virus but had never had symptoms.

(CIDRAP News) – A new project to help improve control strategies for avian influenza has been initiated in eight Asian countries, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) announced yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – Roche announced last week that its United States supply chain for oseltamivir (Tamiflu), used to treat avian influenza and seasonal flu patients, is fully operational, meaning all aspects of its production are based on US soil.

(CIDRAP News) – Sanofi Pasteur today announced the start of the first clinical trial of an H7N1 influenza vaccine, intended to guard against the threat of a pandemic caused by H7 strains of avian influenza.

Current concern about a flu pandemic focuses mainly on the H5N1 avian flu virus, which has infected at least 247 people and killed 144. But H7 avian flu viruses have caused a number of mild illness cases and one death in the past 3 years.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) has retrospectively recognized Iraq's third human case of H5N1 avian influenza, involving a 3-year-old boy who was hospitalized with a mild illness in March and recovered.

The WHO says the boy was hospitalized in Baghdad but doesn't list his home, the source of his infection, or other details.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today recognized two cases of H5N1 avian influenza in Indonesia, including one from March that was first reported yesterday by a WHO official and one from May involving a man who may have become infected after exposure to an ill family member.

(CIDRAP News) – Live-virus vaccines made from a combination of H5N1 avian influenza virus and another flu strain protected laboratory mice and ferrets from deadly infection with several different H5N1 strains, according to a report published yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – Final tests confirmed that a mild strain of H5N1 avian influenza virus, not the deadly type, was found in wild mallard ducks in Maryland last month, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) has retrospectively recognized another case of H5N1 avian influenza in Indonesia, involving a 5-year-old boy from West Java who died in March, according to news services.