Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)

(CIDRAP News) – An outbreak of avian influenza in South Korea has resulted in the deaths of 24,000 chickens at a farm southeast of Seoul.

The disease killed 19,000 chickens at the farm and prompted authorities to destroy the remaining 5,000 chickens as a containment measure, according to a report by the OIE (Office International des Epizooties), the world organization for animal health.

(CIDRAP News) – Health officials in Hong Kong are investigating a case in which a 5-year-old boy was infected with an avian influenza virus called influenza A(H9N2).

The boy was admitted to a hospital Nov 27 with fever, cough, and runny nose, the Hong Kong Department of Health said in a news release yesterday. He was discharged 2 days later and has recovered.

(CIDRAP News) – The devastating outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in the Netherlands is showing signs of losing steam, and a smaller outbreak in neighboring Belgium has been halted, according to European officials.

(CIDRAP News) – The recent death of a Dutch veterinarian due to an avian influenza virus was an isolated case and did not involve an unusual form of the virus, according to World Health Organization (WHO) and Dutch government officials.

In a statement issued yesterday, the WHO said, "Based on available evidence, WHO concludes that the death is an isolated case, as no efficient human-to-human transmission has been detected."

(CIDRAP News) – The death last week of a 57-year-old Dutch veterinarian who had worked among chickens infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) was apparently due to the same disease.

(CIDRAP News) – More than 9 million chickens have been killed and another 2 million are likely to meet the same fate in the battle to contain the month-old epidemic of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in the Netherlands, according to reports from there.

(CIDRAP News) – State and federal officials this week confirmed the presence of low-pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) at a large poultry farm in eastern Connecticut. Meanwhile, the highly pathogenic form of the disease has led to the killing of 1.4 million birds in the Netherlands in the past 2 weeks.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization has issued an alert over outbreaks of severe respiratory illness, including atypical pneumonia, that it has been investigating since mid-February in Vietnam, Hong Kong, and mainland China.