Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization has concluded that Indonesia's recent family cluster of H5N1 avian influenza cases probably involved person-to-person transmission, including one three-person chain, according to the Associated Press (AP).

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) does not have adequate measures in place to test for and monitor avian influenza in commercial poultry, an audit by the department's inspector general said yesterday, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – Further tests have revealed no sign of H5N1 or any other avian influenza virus in samples from a Prince Edward Island poultry flock where an H5 virus was detected last week, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) announced late yesterday.

Samples from the flock tested negative at Canada's avian flu reference laboratory in Winnipeg, Man. "All birds tested negative on serological and virological tests," the CFIA said.

(CIDRAP News) – A 13-year-old boy from south Jakarta who died Jun 14 represented Indonesia's 51st avian influenza case and was the 39th Indonesian to succumb, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) statement today.

His death leaves Indonesia only three fatalities behind Vietnam, which has reported the most H5N1 deaths in the world but hasn't had a human case since late last year, according to WHO information.

(CIDRAP News ) – An H5 avian influenza virus was found in a dead gosling in a backyard flock in eastern Canada late last week, but authorities said today there is "no evidence" that the virus is the deadly H5N1 strain.

Meanwhile, Hungary was culling poultry following the recent confirmation of the country's first H5N1 outbreak in domestic birds, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

(CIDRAP News) – When avian flu struck a poultry flock in Denmark last month, the owners waited 2 weeks to notify authorities, thereby increasing the risk of human infection, according to a report in the Jun 15 Eurosurveillance Weekly.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed today that a 31-year-old man in China's Guangdong province has avian influenza. And Indonesia's Health Ministry, citing local tests, said today that a 14-year-old boy from Jakarta died of the disease, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today reported Indonesia's 50th human case of H5N1 avian influenza, while Chinese authorities said further tests have confirmed a case reported yesterday in a man from Guangdong province.

(CIDRAP News) – A 31-year-old Chinese man from Guangdong province near Hong Kong has tested positive for H5N1 avian influenza, according to a Xinhua news report today.

(CIDRAP News) – Scientists in Hong Kong have reported new experimental evidence that avian influenza infections in human cells are more likely to trigger a destructive immune-system overreaction, or "cytokine storm," than human flu viruses are.