Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) this week stepped up its warnings about the risk of an influenza pandemic, while Thailand reported four new outbreaks of avian flu on poultry farms.

(CIDRAP News) – Japanese authorities have culled 500,000 birds and plan to cull about 1 million more to stop an outbreak of H5N2 avian influenza, a milder form than the deadly H5N1, which has infected a number of backyard poultry flocks in Thailand recently.

(CIDRAP News) – A 58-year-old Vietnamese has died of a probable case of avian influenza, the first such fatality in a month, news services reported today.

The victim, a Hanoi resident who was not named, died Aug 24 and tested positive for an H5 virus, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report quoting Nguyen Tran Hien, director of an epidemiology institute in Hanoi.

(CIDRAP News) – Mongolian officials said tests have detected an H5N1 avian influenza virus in several wild birds, confirming earlier indications that the virus had reached the central Asian country.

(CIDRAP News) – Reports today said three rare palm civets that recently died in captivity in Vietnam were infected with an H5N1 avian influenza virus, adding another species to the list of those susceptible to the pathogen.

(CIDRAP News) – The British biotechnology firm Acambis recently announced its launching of a quest for the Holy Grail of influenza prevention: a vaccine that would protect people from the virus for many years and perhaps even stave off future pandemic strains.

(CIDRAP News) – European veterinary experts who met in Brussels today concluded there is little immediate risk that wild birds will spread avian influenza from Russia into Europe.

(CIDRAP News) – The Swiss drug company Roche has pledged to give the World Health Organization (WHO) enough doses of the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu) to treat 3 million people, in the hope that it could help to stave off or delay an influenza pandemic.

(CIDRAP News) – Wildlife researchers and Mongolian officials have reported increasing evidence that H5N1 avian influenza has infected wild birds in Mongolia, though findings are not yet conclusive.

(CIDRAP News) – An outbreak of a mild form of avian influenza was reported in Japan today, as the World Health Organization (WHO) voiced concern about the recent spread of H5N1 avian flu to Russia and Kazakhstan.