News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says the recent detection of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a Canadian cow shows that active surveillance programs for BSE are working.

"The identification of a single case of BSE is not a cause for panic," Andrew Speedy of the FAO's Animal Production and Health Division said in a news release from the agency's Rome headquarters.

(CIDRAP News) – China reported an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza in ducks today, while the World Health Organization (WHO) joined other international groups in appealing for a multinational campaign to stop the disease's march across Asia.

(CIDRAP News) – The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), downplaying statements by a regional FAO official, said today it had no evidence that pigs are involved in transmitting the H5N1 avian influenza virus in Asia.

(CIDRAP News) – Thailand reported two more confirmed human cases of H5N1 avian influenza and another death today, while the United Nations warned that the virus is still spreading in Asian poultry.

In the United States, meanwhile, an outbreak of avian influenza at four live-bird markets in New Jersey was attributed to a low-pathogenic strain that poses no threat to humans.

(CIDRAP News) – A recent exercise that confronted international leaders with a hypothetical smallpox attack showed the potential for tensions between countries that have enough smallpox vaccine and those that don't, according to news reports.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) is preparing to recommend that governments consider stockpiling vaccines against the H5N1 avian influenza virus now, rather than waiting until a human flu pandemic emerges, according to a story published online today by New Scientist magazine.

(CIDRAP News) – The plot of the world's latest pneumonic plague outbreak echoes with history.

Like a 19th-century American gold rush, news of the discovery of diamonds in a remote northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in November 2004 sparked an influx of adventurers hoping to strike it rich.

(CIDRAP News) – International health agencies are questioning China about a report that the country has used a human antiviral drug in poultry for years, thereby causing the H5N1 influenza virus to become resistant to the drug.

(CIDRAP News) – US officials this week promoted international efforts to prepare for a potential influenza pandemic, announcing an international flu surveillance partnership and promising aid to Vietnam for avian and human flu surveillance.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesian officials have blamed two more deaths on H5N1 avian influenza, bringing the country's reported avian flu toll to six, although the cases have not yet been confirmed by an international reference laboratory.

A 27-year-old woman who died today and a 5-year-old girl who died last week had the virus, according to officials quoted by the Associated Press (AP) and Agence France-Presse.