Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)

(CIDRAP News) – Russian workers were slaughtering thousands of birds today in an effort to contain avian influenza, while another possible outbreak was reported to the south in Kazakhstan.

(CIDRAP News) – Avian influenza has cropped up in chickens near Russia's Ural Mountains, possibly signaling a continued westward march of the deadly H5N1 virus, news services in Russia reported today.

The Chelyabinsk region along the southern end of the Urals is the sixth area in Russia to have been hit by avian flu outbreaks recently, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Reuters. The Urals separate Siberia from European Russia.

(CIDRAP News) – A week-long meeting of Asian nations just finished in Bangkok resulted in consensus that regional stockpiles of antivirals should be amassed for fast use in the influenza pandemic that is widely expected to emerge from the avian flu strain now circulating.

(CIDRAP News) – Both the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) have said in the past day that Tibet has reported its first cases of avian influenza in poultry.

(CIDRAP News) – Reports from Vietnam say a 35-year-old man who died Jul 31 had H5N1 avian influenza, although official confirmation from the Ministry of Health is still to come.

(CIDRAP News) – Positive results from a human vaccine against the H5N1 avian flu that is the prime candidate for causing the next influenza pandemic came out of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), this weekend. Still, the challenges to producing such a vaccine in the quantities needed in an actual pandemic lend a dose of reality to the news.

(CIDRAP News) – Three more cases of H5N1 avian influenza in Vietnam, two of them fatal, were officially recognized today by the World Health Organization (WHO) after confirmation came from that country's Health Ministry, bringing the count to 90 cases with 40 deaths.

(CIDRAP News) – Researchers relying on mathematical modeling claim that early containment of pandemic influenza, an eventuality widely accepted as not an "if" but a "when," may well be attainable through targeted public health strategies. A leading public health expert, however, cautions against viewing these study results as fodder for relaxed planning efforts, stressing the myriad variables that would come into play.

(CIDRAP News) – Mass culling of domestic poultry in 13 villages in the Novosibirsk province of Russia is reportedly being carried out today. In addition, thousands of area families are being checked daily for illness, and farmers have been ordered to wear protective garments in an effort to contain the avian influenza outbreak there.

Editor's note: This story was revised July 31 to clarify information about previous reports of H5N1 influenza viruses in Russia.

(CIDRAP News) – News services said today the avian influenza outbreak reported last week in Russia involves the dangerous H5N1 strain, while two more fatal human cases of the illness were reported in Vietnam.