Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced it has warned nine companies to stop selling unlicensed products advertised as remedies for avian influenza and other kinds of flu.

(CIDRAP News) – A 35-year-old Indonesian man who died in November had H5N1 avian influenza, marking the country's 14th confirmed case and ninth death, Indonesian officials announced today.

Officials made the announcement after receiving test results from a World Health Organization (WHO) reference laboratory in Hong Kong, according to a Bloomberg News report today. The man died in Jakarta.

(CIDRAP News) – Two more human cases of H5N1 avian influenza have been confirmed, one in a Chinese woman who has recovered and the other in a 5-year-old Thai boy who died Dec 7, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today.

The cases increase the human toll of the virus over the past 2 years to 137 cases, including 70 deaths, according to the WHO. Exposure to poultry is the suspected cause in both of the latest cases.

(CIDRAP News) – Although thorough cooking ensures that chicken and other poultry are safe to eat, birds from flocks infected with H5N1 avian influenza should be kept out of the food supply, international health and agriculture authorities said this week.

Editor's note: This story was revised Dec 8 to correct the erroneous statement that the World Health Organization had confirmed two more deaths from avian influenza (rather than two cases.)

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed two more human cases of avian influenza, one in China and a fatal one in Indonesia, bringing the global total to 135 cases with 69 deaths in nearly 2 years.

(CIDRAP News) – State health officials at a Washington, DC, meeting yesterday expressed frustration over problems with supplies of seasonal flu vaccine, while federal officials promised that the government's pandemic influenza preparedness plan will help clear up those problems.

(CIDRAP News) – State and local health officials from around the nation today voiced qualified support for a federal government plan to hold a "summit" meeting on pandemic influenza preparedness in every state over the next few months.

(CIDRAP News) – Romania has reported three new outbreaks of avian influenza this week, while a mild strain of avian flu has surfaced in North Carolina turkeys, according to news services.

Dozens of chickens were found dead in the southeastern Romanian villages of Bumbacari and Dudescu, which lie outside the Danube River delta, according to Agence France-Presse and Bloomberg News reports. The viral strain was not listed.

(CIDRAP News) – An Indonesian woman who died in a Jakarta hospital yesterday has tested positive for H5N1 avian influenza, according to officials quoted in The Jakarta Post. Further testing is pending at a World Health Organization (WHO) reference laboratory in Hong Kong.