(CIDRAP News) US health officials announced today they have ordered more than 14 million treatment courses of two antiviral drugs to add to the 5.5 million courses already bought in preparation for a possible influenza pandemic.
(CIDRAP News) Europe braced for further spread of the H5N1 avian influenza virus today in the wake of reports that the virus was suspected in the deaths of two wild ducks on Sweden's Baltic coast and a domestic cat in Germany.
The cat was discovered last weekend on Ruegen, the island off Germany's north coast where H5N1 was first discovered on German soil, according to a Reuters report.
(CIDRAP News) The H5N1 avian influenza virus has spread to Niger and Bosnia-Herzegovina, media outlets said today, and testing is under way on birds found dead in Switzerland, Pakistan, and Kenya.
(CIDRAP News) More than half of Americans are concerned about the threat of avian influenza reaching the United States, but few are "very concerned" and fewer still have looked into getting an antiviral drug to protect themselves, according to a survey from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH).
(CIDRAP News) A girl and a young woman in China have contracted avian influenza and are in critical condition, marking the 13th and 14th confirmed cases there, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported today.
In addition, the WHO recognized a fatal human case of avian flu that was reported last week in Indonesia. The WHO's current global count of human bird flu cases is 173, including 93 deaths.
(CIDRAP News) Authorities in the former Soviet republic of Georgia today reported finding H5N1 avian influenza in swans, making Georgia the 16th country to report its first case this month.
Dead swans found in the village of Adliya, in the Black Sea coastal region of Adjara, tested positive, said Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli, as quoted in an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report.
(CIDRAP News) H5N1 virus has been found in wild birds in yet another European country, Slovakia, while tests of samples from 95 people in India have revealed no cases of avian influenza so far, according to reports today.
(CIDRAP News) The World Health Organization (WHO) says H5N1 avian influenza has infected birds in 14 more countries since the beginning of this month, and recent genetic changes in the virus may have something to do with its rapid spread in birds.
(CIDRAP News) The US government recently agreed to collaborate with France's Institut Pasteur (IP) on efforts to increase the world's ability to detect influenza viruses that could lead to a human flu pandemic.
(CIDRAP News) Two human cases of H5N1 avian flu have been confirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO) in recent daysone each in Iraq and Indonesiaand dozens of sick people in several countries are being tested.
In addition, the WHO said today that studies of the human H5N1 cases in Turkey have produced no clear evidence that the virus has changed its behavior in humans or improved its ability to spread from person to person.
