Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)

(CIDRAP News) – Instead of finding common ground on pandemic influenza planning, World Health Organization (WHO) members this week hit rocky terrain.

(CIDRAP News) – The idea of stopping an emerging influenza pandemic would have seemed ridiculous until a few years ago, but today the world just might have a chance to do that, according to two flu experts who published opinion pieces this week.

(CIDRAP News) - A reported family cluster of H5N1 avian influenza cases among three brothers in Vietnam may turn out to be only two cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today.

Contrary to some media reports, the WHO said the 36-year-old younger brother of two men who contracted the disease has not been sick, though test results are still pending.

(CIDRAP News) – Researchers who analyzed a family cluster of three cases of H5N1 avian influenza in Thailand say in an article published today that two family members probably acquired the disease from the third.

(CIDRAP News) – Three more confirmed human cases of H5N1 avian influenza—two of them fatal—have been reported in Vietnam since Jan 21.

The latest cases, which involved a teenager and a man and woman in their 30s, bring the number of confirmed fatal cases in Vietnam since late December to nine, according to media reports.

(CIDRAP News) – The next infectious disease to enter the United States might cross the border taped to a traveler's leg or tucked snugly under a tourist's hat.

Smuggling of wild animals has always posed hazards to human health, but the stakes may be getting higher today, given the role of animal hosts in lethal outbreaks such as SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and avian influenza.

(CIDRAP News) – Authorities are investigating the possibility of human-to-human transmission of avian influenza in two newly confirmed cases in middle-aged brothers in northern Vietnam, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – The death of an 18-year-old woman from a southern province was Vietnam's sixth avian influenza death since late December, Vietnamese officials were quoted as saying today.

The young woman, who died in Ho Chi Minh City yesterday after 13 days in a hospital there, was from Tien Gang, Health Ministry spokesman Tran Duc Long told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today added two more cases to its tally of confirmed human cases of H5N1 avian flu in Vietnam, and WHO officials reportedly said another 10 suspected cases are under investigation there.

Jan 14, 2004 (CIDRAP News) – One of the worst fears of infectious disease experts is that the H5N1 avian influenza virus now circulating in parts of Asia will combine with a human-adapted flu virus to create a deadly new flu virus that could spread around the world.