Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)

(CIDRAP News) – Avian influenza is continuing its spread among birds in many countries worldwide, with widespread outbreaks reported in Myanmar.

More than 100 outbreaks have occurred in poultry in Myanmar (formerly Burma) since the presence of H5N1 avian flu was announced there about a month ago, officials from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) told Reuters news service yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – A mathematical modeling study suggests that a modestly effective vaccine could keep an influenza pandemic from striking more than 10% of the US population, but only if large amounts of vaccine were distributed quickly and the virus was not too highly contagious.

(CIDRAP News) – The human toll of avian influenza in Egypt rose to 11 cases today with reports that an 18-year-old girl has died and an 8-year-old boy is hospitalized with the illness.

(CIDRAP News) – Deadly H5N1 avian influenza has infected a swan found on the coast of Scotland, the first time the virus has turned up in a wild bird in the British Isles, news services reported today.

The news came as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that efforts to control avian flu on poultry farms "are slowly proving successful," especially in Thailand, Vietnam, and China.

April 5, 2006 (CIDRAP News) – Avian flu has resurfaced in two countries, killing a 12-year-old boy in Cambodia and sickening a little girl in Egypt, according to news services.

The Cambodian boy died last night, said Michael O'Leary, World Health Organization (WHO) representative in Phnom Penh, who was quoted in a Reuters report today. The boy was from the southeastern province of Prey Veng, adjoining Vietnam.

(CIDRAP News) – Growing evidence of H5N1 avian influenza in cats suggests they may play a role in spreading the virus, signaling a need for new precautions, according to a team of medical and veterinary researchers from the Netherlands and Italy.

(CIDRAP News) – The H5N1 avian influenza virus caused the deaths of two Indonesian girls, one late last month and the other dating back to July 2005, authorities said today.

A 20-month-old girl from Kapuk, West Jakarta, who died on Mar 23, suffered from a fatal H5N1 infection, bringing to 30 the number of human cases of the illness in Indonesia. Twenty-three of those people died of the disease.

April 4, 2006 (CIDRAP News) – The H5N1 virus has sneaked across another border, making Burkina Faso the fifth African nation to lose poultry to the virus.

April 3, 2006 (CIDRAP News) – The deaths of four Egyptians have been laid at the door of avian influenza, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed today, while Egyptian officials' case tally has reached twice that number.

In addition, an Egyptian was diagnosed with avian flu in Jordan late last week, though he contracted the disease in Egypt, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesia has confirmed a case of H5N1 avian influenza in a 1-year-old girl who died last week, and the illness is suspected in another Indonesian and in a teenager in Azerbaijan, according to news services.