Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)

(CIDRAP News) – Key global organizations that are fighting the battle against avian influenza may have to cut some programs, because only $286 million of the $1.9 billion pledged by 34 countries in January has been delivered, news services have reported.

(CIDRAP News) – Two vaccines protected chickens against Newcastle disease (ND) and avian influenza and may provide approaches for producing human vaccines against the H5N1 avian flu virus, according to two studies published in the May 26 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

(CIDRAP News) – An experimental DNA-based flu vaccine that is propelled into the skin on tiny particles instead of injected showed promise in a phase 1 trial involving 36 adults, according to a report published in the May 22 issue of Vaccine.

(CIDRAP News) – Wild birds have played and will continue to play a role in carrying the H5N1 strain of avian influenza over long distances, but the virus spreads mainly through poultry trade, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesian officials reported still another human case of H5N1 avian influenza today on the basis of local tests, while the cause of the recent family cluster of cases in Sumatra continued to elude investigators.

(CIDRAP news) – The European Commission (EC) reported yesterday that 741 cases of H5N1 avian influenza have been detected among about 60,000 wild birds tested in European Union states since February.

The EC presented its data during the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)/World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) International Scientific Conference on Avian Influenza and Wild Birds, which concluded yesterday in Rome.

(CIDRAP News) – A 15-year-old boy in West Java has become Indonesia's latest avian flu fatality, according to news reports that cited local tests.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported today that in the remote North Sumatra village that witnessed a large family cluster of avian flu cases, no cases suggestive of H5N1 infection have been detected since May 22.

(CIDRAP News) – Experts who investigated two clusters of human cases of H5N1 avian influenza in Azerbaijan in March concluded that one cluster marked the first time humans probably contracted the disease from wild birds—in this case, dead swans.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed yesterday six new cases of H5N1 avian flu in geographically widespread areas of the country, but none associated with the Karo, North Sumatra, family cluster that killed at least six people earlier this month.

Of the six new cases, three have been fatal, raising the number of cases in Indonesia to 48 and the number of deaths to 36, all in 2005 and 2006, according to WHO statistics.

(CIDRAP News) – Member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) agreed today to invoke a set of health regulations related to influenza a year early because of the threat that H5N1 avian flu will trigger a flu pandemic.

The voluntary regulations are part of the International Health Regulations (IHR), which were approved by the World Health Assembly a year ago but are not scheduled to take effect until June 2007.