News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said this week that "substantial progress has been made in the preparedness and response mechanisms" for battling H5N1 avian influenza around the world.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesia has confirmed a case of H5N1 avian influenza in a 1-year-old girl who died last week, and the illness is suspected in another Indonesian and in a teenager in Azerbaijan, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – Avian influenza has been ruled out in a 14-year-old Turkish boy who died over the weekend and in three siblings who were hospitalized with him, according to news services.

Tests on the four children were negative for avian flu, according to Turkish health officials quoted in an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report published yesterday.

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.

(CIDRAP News) – Indonesian officials confirmed today that a man and his two young daughters who died earlier this month had H5N1 avian influenza, though they had had no known contact with infected poultry.

The 38-year-old man and his daughters, aged 1 and 9, were the first Indonesians to die of the illness. Indonesia has had a number of poultry outbreaks but only one previous human case, an asymptomatic one reported last month.

(CIDRAP News) – The H5N1 avian influenza virus is evolving and poses "a continuing and potentially growing pandemic threat," say experts who were convened recently by the World Health Organization (WHO) to study the pathogen.

(CIDRAP News) – Vietnam, mired in a renewed avian influenza outbreak that has led to the death of 12 people and the culling of roughly 1 million poultry since Dec 30, 2004, asked the international community for help this week.

(CIDRAP News) – Two Vietnamese girls died of avian influenza over the weekend, and the disease may have claimed its first human victim in Cambodia, according to news services.

A 13-year-old girl and a 10-year-old girl became the 11th and 12th people to die of H5N1 avian flu in Vietnam since late December, according to reports. Their illnesses were first reported in the news media Jan 28.

(CIDRAP News) – Another human case of highly pathogenic avian influenza (bird flu) was confirmed in Vietnam today, bringing total confirmed cases to 11, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The case involved a 4-year-old boy who fell ill Dec 22, was hospitalized a week later, and is now fully recovered, the WHO said. Vietnam now has had eight confirmed cases, and Thailand has three. Six cases in Vietnam and two in Thailand were fatal.