Media Coverage: Avian Influenza

Given the special circumstances of the sudden occurrence of Avian Influenza (also called Avian Flu or bird flu), we have collected the following examples of media coverage from primarily developing country media outlets. We will attempt to add to this list, in chronological order, on a monthly basis. This is not a comprehensive listing. Please accept our apologies as some of the links below may no longer be accessible. Please send media coverage on Avian Influenza that you find valuable to Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com

===

June 30 2008
Japan, China, S. Korea plan flu outbreak drill
The Yomiuri Shimbun
The government has decided to conduct its first joint drill with China and South Korea, possibly in October, to prepare against the possibility of an outbreak of new strains of influenza, according to sources. Through the joint drill, the three countries hope to determine whether the sharing of information among them and their quarantine measures are satisfactory, using the results of the drill to establish new guidelines. The Japanese government also plans to conduct joint drills with domestic medical institutions and local governments and to determine if these entities nationwide are fully prepared for a possible outbreak...
Click here to access the full article.

June 29 2008
World Bank gives sh17b to fight bird flu
The New Vision
by Barbara Among
THE World Bank has given Uganda $10m (about sh17b) to finance a four-year project aimed at preventing bird flu (avian and human influenza). The money will be used to support efforts aimed at reducing the threat the disease poses to people and poultry and other diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans. "While an Avian and Human Influenza outbreak has not yet occurred in Uganda, there is no doubt that the negative socio-economic impact of an outbreak would be enormous and devastating," said Kundhavi Kadiresan, the World Bank Uganda country manager...
Click here to access the full article.

June 26 2008
USAID Continues to Help Sri Lanka Prevent Avian Influenza
Asian Tribune
Colombo: The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) handed over on June 24 in Kandy a second donation of key supplies to the Ministry of Livestock Development to help strengthen Sri Lanka's early warning and reaction capacity against Avian Influenza. Since 2006, USAID Sri Lanka has worked with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to increase Avian Influenza preparedness activities across the island, in collaboration with the Department of Animal Production and Health. The program has strengthened Sri Lanka's early warning and early reaction capacity and provided critical preparedness materials to government and private sector stakeholders in the poultry industry...
Click here to access the full article.

Jun 23 2008
H5N1 virus resurfaces in Pakistan
CIDRAP News
by Lisa Schnirring
A livestock official in Pakistan today confirmed that the H5N1 avian influenza virus has struck again in the country's North-West Frontier province, killing thousands of chickens at a commercial farm. Ibrahim Kahn, a livestock department chief in Swabi district, where the outbreak occurred, said confirmatory tests were performed at a government laboratory in Islamabad, according to a report today from Agence France-Presse (AFP). Kahn told AFP that the farm's owner notified authorities on Jun 20 about the suspicious deaths of about 4,000 birds. After a laboratory confirmed the H5N1 virus in samples from the birds the next day, authorities sealed the farm and destroyed about 2,000 birds, he said...
Click here to access the full article.

June 23 2008
Bird Flu Cases Declining In Indonesia, But Prevalence Still Seen High Internationally
ANTARA News
by Eliswan Azly
Jakarta - It is a debatable question if we wish to see the progress made by Indonesia in eradicating the fatal bird flu virus (H5N1) in this largest archipelagic country. It depends on where we start in seeing the progress and performance of eradicating the bird flu virus. At national level, it is true the number of bird flu cases in this country has declined compared to last year's, but at international level, it is still high...
Click here to access the full article.

June 21 2008
World not fully prepared for flu pandemic: expert
REUTERS
by Tan Ee Lyn
KUALA LUMPUR - The world is far from being fully prepared for a flu pandemic, a leading U.S. infectious diseases expert said on Saturday, warning there were big gaps in surveillance and basic knowledge. Experts have long warned that the H5N1 bird flu virus could trigger the next pandemic and kill millions of people if it becomes easily transmissible among humans. "We are a long way from being fully prepared. We do not have a vaccine that will provide universal protection..."
click here to access the full article.

June 17 2008
Cambodia, FAO vigilant over re-occurrence of bird flu
China View
PHNOM PENH (Xinhua) - It is important for Cambodia to remain vigilant for possible re-occurrence of avian influenza, as Cambodia shares borders with Vietnam and Thailand where outbreaks of the pathogenic virus continued to occur, said a statement here Tuesday. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Cambodian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in their joint statement said that they have been organizing public awareness and education activities to warn Cambodians of the danger avian influenza poses to their poultry and to their health. Village meetings in Svay Rieng, Takeo, Kampong Cham and Kampot provinces, all bordering Vietnam, have been conducted since April, drawing 4,000 people from 25 villages, it added...
Click here to access the full article.

June 17 2008
UN Cites Progress in Combating Avian Flu
Voice of America
by Maha Saad
Nabarro says the global situation is improving due to increased vigilance. He says nations have invested heavily in the way poultry is reared to reduce the threat of avian influenza. Nabarro also cites an increased understanding of the link between animal and human diseases. "There has been an extraordinary global response to the bird flu enzootic [endemic]...."
Click here to access the full article.

June 14 2008
Malawi readies for avian influenza attack
Nyasa Times
Malawi government is tying loose ends in readiness for any possible attack of avian influenza, a senior government official has said. Secretary for Agriculture and Food Security, Dr. Andrew Daudi said avian influenza, though not yet in the country, remains a big threat to the country and government was preparing itself for any attack. Avian influenza was first reported in Asia in 2005 while Nigeria was the first African nation to record a case in poultry stocks in February 2006...
Click here to access the full article.

June 14 2008
Indonesia's bird flu policy angers families
KHALEEJ TIMES (Pakistan)
BITUNG, Indonesia - Ali Usman's wife died of bird flu 10 days ago, but the government has yet to notify next-of-kin about the cause. He searches for answers in newspapers, which until last month reported aggressively on deaths linked to the virus, but finds nothing. That's because the health ministry has stopped publicizing bird flu fatalities immediately, part of a campaign to shift focus instead to successes in battling the disease in the hardest hit nation. From now on, deaths will be announced in clusters, perhaps just a few times a year...
Click here to access the full article.

June 12 2008
HK culls all live chickens as H5N1 spreads
CHINA DAILY (China)
HONG KONG - Health authorities in Hong Kong announced on Wednesday that they would slaughter all live chickens in the retail markets following further reported cases of H5N1 infections among the poultry on the market. The decision came after faeces samples taken from markets at Tuen Mun, Fanling and Ap Lei Chau tested positive for the deadly H5N1 virus, the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government said. "We have announced that all market stores and fresh provision shops selling live poultry are now infected areas," said department director Cheung Siu-hing...
Click here to access the full article.

June 10 2008
South Asia to tackle bird flu
DAILY NEWS (Sri Lanka)
South Asian countries have decided to work together to fight trans-boundary animal diseases and develop an early warning system to tackle bird Flu. Recent outbreaks of bird flu in West Bengal and Tripura have been blamed on Bangladesh, where the disease broke out earlier. After a two-day meeting here of chief veterinary officers from seven of the eight countries in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SARRC)), the participants decided Tuesday to share "timely information" and go for "progressive harmonisation of veterinary service" in the region. The chief veterinary officers of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India participated in the meeting...
Click here to access the full article.

June 7 2008
Indonesia's bird flu policy draws criticism
INDEPENDENT ONLINE (South Africa)
by Olivia Rondonuwu
Jakarta - Indonesia's decision to report bird flu cases in humans only every six months, rather than immediately, is irresponsible and could lead to delays in containing outbreaks of the disease, a scientist said on Friday. Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari, who has clashed with the international community and United States over her handling of health issues, on Thursday said her ministry had changed its policy and would only report cases every six months...
Click here to access the full article.

June 4 2008
New bird flu outbreak near Banbury 'went undetected for three weeks'
THE TIMES ONLINE (United Kingdom)
by Valerie Elliott
Free-range chickens on the farm at the centre of the latest avian flu alert have been infected with the disease for three weeks, The Times has learnt. A local veterinary surgeon was called to Eastwood Farm in the village of Shenington, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, after an increase of mortality in hens in one 3,000-bird shed. The birds were treated with antibiotics. The owner however raised the alarm on Monday when 10 per cent of his 25,000 flock were found dead. Only then was avian flu suspected...
Click here to access the full article.

June 4 2008
New hope in bird flu fight
THE STANDARD (Hong Kong)
by Carol Chung
Hong Kong scientists have discovered a drugs cocktail that they believe may quadruple the survival rate of people infected with the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus. In a groundbreaking study, the 13-member team from Hong Kong University gave H5N1-infected mice a mixture of three drugs. The drugs suppressed the deadly virus, boosted survival rates and reduced the often fatal overreaction of the immune system...
Click here to access the full article.

June 2 2008
Uganda Intensifies Fight to Prevent Avian Flu
Voice Of America
by Douglas Mpuga
A new influenza research laboratory has opened in Kampala to strengthen the monitoring of avian flu in the East Africa region. The modern state of the art laboratory is housed at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Makerere University in the capital, Kampala. The director of the facility, Dr. Denis Byarugaba, told VOA English to Africa reporter Douglas Mpuga the laboratory resulted from a joint project between Makerere University and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the United States. "Our objective in putting this infrastructure in place is to conduct surveillance of avian influenza and influenza-like viruses," he said.
Click here to access the full article.

May 27 2008
Battling Bird Flu By The Numbers
SCIENCE DAILY
A pair of Los Alamos National Laboratory theorists have developed a mathematical tool that could help health experts and crisis managers determine in real time whether an emerging infectious disease such as avian influenza H5N1 is poised to spread globally. In a paper published recently in the Public Library of Science, researchers Luís Bettencourt and Ruy Ribeiro of Los Alamos' Theoretical Division describe a novel approach to reading subtle changes in epidemiological data to gain insight into whether something like the H5N1 strain of avian influenza - commonly known these days as the "Bird Flu" - has gained the ability to touch off a deadly global pandemic...
Click here to access the full article.

May 26 2008
Evolution of flu strains points to higher risk
KHALEEJ TIMES (United Arab Emirates)
CHICAGO - Some strains of bird flu are coming ever closer to developing the traits they need to cause a human pandemic, a study released Monday said. Researchers who analysed samples of recent avian flu viruses found that a few H7 strains of the virus that have caused minor, untransmissible infections in people in North America between 2002 and 2004 have increased their affinity for the sugars found on human tracheal cells...
Click here to access the full article.

May 24 2008
Bangladesh reports 1st human case of bird flu
THE TIMES OF INDIA (India)
New Delhi: The country considered to be the source of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus, that's causing havoc in India now, has some more bad news. Bangladesh announced its first human case of bird flu on Friday in a 16-month-old baby boy, bringing the number of countries which have recorded human infections to 15. Avian Influenza has already spread through 47 of Bangladesh’s 64 districts and concerned Indian authorities say when the disease is so widespread in poultry, it is really a matter of time before humans start getting infected...
Click here to access the full article.

May 24 2008
Farmers keep bird flu at bay
VIET NAM NEWS (Viet Nam)
LONG AN - While the avian flu epidemic spreads nationwide, many big chicken farms in Mekong Delta provinces are still safe from the scourge due to their self-contained chicken raising process and the automatic system of cooling. This model is being employed by farmers in the Mekong Delta provinces of Can Tho, Vinh Long, Tien Giang and Kien Giang in co-operation with C.P Breeding Limited Liability Company...
Click here to access the full article.

May 23 3008
Bird-flu risk in 6 districts
KANTIPUR ONLINE (Nepal)
KATHMANDU - Avian Influenza Control Project has said six districts bordering India are at risk of bird flu. According to Dr Manas Kumar Banerjee, coordinator of Avian Influenza Control Project of Epidemiology and Disease Control Division under Ministry of Health and Population, Jhapa, Ilam, Panchthar, Taplejung, Sunsari and Morang districts are at risk of the flu. "There is embargo on the import of poultry items but despite the ban, items like white eggs which are found only in India are also found in the local market of the mentioned districts," said Dr Banerjee...
Click here to access the full article.

May 22 2008
Local Bird Flu Virus Matches Strain Found in Japan
CHOSUN ILBO (South Korea)
Researchers have found that strains of bird flu found in Korea and Japan this year are almost genetically the same. The National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service said Wednesday that the genetic makeup of a strain of bird flu sampled from chickens in Gimje, South Jeolla Province was 99.7 percent identical to a sample from swans found in Japan's Akita prefecture. The finding gives grounds to analysis that the latest outbreak of avian influenza may have originated from migratory birds. Kim Jae-hong, a professor of veterinary medicine at Seoul National University, said that viruses over 99 percent genetically the same are considered the same strain. This substantiates assumptions that migratory birds spread the virus on their way north in March and April after spending the winter in Southeast Asia...
Click here to access the full article.

May 19 2008
Siberian birds test positive for bird flu antibodies
RIA NOVOSTI (Russia)
NOVOSIBIRSK - Agricultural experts have detected bird flu antibodies in migratory birds in southern Siberia, Russia's agricultural watchdog said in a statement Monday. The presence of antibodies means that either the birds have been in contact with infected birds or have survived avian influenza, but they are not a source of infection. "Laboratory tests revealed antibodies of the H5 subtype of the virus in 18 blood samples taken from migratory birds in three regions in the Altai Territory and three samples taken at Lake Uvs Nuur in the Tuva Republic," Rosselkhoznadzor reported...
Click here to access the full article.

May 15 2008
Indonesia agrees to hand bird flu information to new online database
THE STAR (Malaysia)
JAKARTA, Indonesia: Indonesia's health minister said Thursday she would start sharing all genetic information about her country's bird flu virus with a new global database, to monitor whether the disease is mutating into a dangerous pandemic strain. China, Russia and other nations that have long withheld influenza virus samples and DNA sequencing data from international databases are also taking part in the initiative, saying it offers full transparency and, for the first time, basic protection of intellectual property rights. Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari became an unlikely hero in the bird flu fight when in January 2007 she decided to buck the WHO's 50-year-old virus sharing system, which obliged member countries to submit bird flu samples and data to the global body, saying it was unfair to developing countries...
Click here to access the full article.

May 12 2008
South Korea kills all poultry in Seoul after bird flu reported
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE (France)
SEOUL, South Korea: South Korean officials said Monday they had killed Seoul's entire poultry population to curb the spread of bird flu following a fresh outbreak of the disease in the capital. Quarantine officials destroyed 15,000 chickens, ducks, pheasants and turkeys raised in farms, restaurants, schools and homes in the city, said Kim Yoon-kyu, an official at the Seoul Metropolitan Government. The Seoul government said in a statement that the slaughter was necessary to contain the disease. It said it will now focus on preventing live poultry from being brought into Seoul...
Click here to access the full article.

May 1 2008
Govts act to contain bird flu / All Akita Pref. chicken farms inspected to counter outbreak
THE DAILY YOMIURI (Japan)
AKITA - Following the confirmation that the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza was detected in dead and dying swans near Lake Towada in Akita Prefecture, local governments and residents have been working to prevent the infection from spreading. Three dead ohakucho swans, or whooper swans, and a dying swan were found in an area with a 500-meter radius south of the lake on April 21. The Akita prefectural government is especially concerned that the deadly bird flu virus outbreak may affect sales of Hinai-jidori chicken, a nationally known delicacy, and other local products...
Click here to access the full article.

April 29 2008
Tanzania: Government Steps Up Alertness On Bird Flu
ALLAFRICA.COM
by Polycarp Machira
The government has stepped up efforts to prevent bird flu, but once again warned against illegal importation of poultry into the country. Speaking at the launch of the National Plan to prevent avian influenza (bird flu) in Dar es Salaam yesterday, Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda said the disease was still under control. But he also warned about the risk of the disease if people defy the ban on importing poultry products from neighbouring countries...
Click here to access the full article.

April 28 2008
Strain of bird flu found in swans in Japan
GULF NEWS (United Arab Emirates)
Tokyo: A strain of bird flu has been discovered in four wild swans in Japan, after checks were conducted following major outbreaks of the disease in South Korea, local and government officials said on Monday. The birds were found near Lake Towada in the northern Akita region on April 21, a government news release said. Three of the birds have since died. The H5 strain of bird flu was detected in the swans, but authorities were still looking for the highly were still checking whether it was the dangerous H5N1 strain...
Click here to access the full article.

April 26 2008
Villagers in bird-flu hit Tripura lament paltry compensation
THE ECONOMIC TIMES (India)
KALAKACCHYA (TRIPURA): Villagers in bird-flu hit Tripura have complained about the lack of adequate compensation from the government, even as culling of poultry continues to stave off avian influenza. "We are not satisfied with the money offered by the government. In the market, the birds costs around 120 to 130 rupees each, but we are being paid a mere 40 rupees. Apart from that, if the culling is carried out in this process, all the farms will be destroyed," claimed Sephal Saha, a villager...
Click here to access the full article.

April 25 2008
'Pandemic' hits Indonesia in massive bird flu drill
KHALEEJ TIMES (United Arab Emirates)
TUKADDAYA, Indonesia - Hundreds of Indonesian villagers and health workers took part in a massive drill here Friday to prepare for a potentially devastating outbreak of human-to-human bird flu. The largest bird flu drill ever held in Indonesia, the country worst hit by the virus, involved the simulated outbreak of a pandemic which experts say could rapidly spread across the globe killing millions of people. "This is the biggest drill in Indonesia. The objective is to test the preparedness of bird flu officials to manage an outbreak in case it happens," health ministry disease control chief I Nyoman Kandun told reporters...
Click here to access the full article.

April 24 2008
India blames Bangladesh for recent spread of bird flu
GULF NEWS (United Arab Emirates)
Guwahati: Indian authorities have blamed Bangladesh on Thursday for the recent spread in bird flu in poultry that has gripped the region recently, while experts claim India should take more measures to contain the virus. A top official at the animal resource development department in India said: "Unless bird flu is contained completely in Bangladesh, the virus will keep spreading in Tripura," adding that close proximity with the country is a crucial factor in the spread of the disease...
Click here to access the full article.

April 17 2008
Tech eyed to speed up flu vaccines
JAPAN TIMES (Japan)
A health ministry expert panel met Wednesday to explore ways to combat a possible new influenza pandemic against which humans have little immunity, including developing new technology to significantly shorten the time needed to produce an effective vaccine. The panel under the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry also discussed the viability of using the so-called H5NI prepandemic vaccine before the spread of bird flu becomes rampant among humans. The technology being used to shorten the production time is called a "cell culture" method...
Click here to access the full article.

April 16 2008
Flu comes fresh from Asia each year: study
America Online (United States)
by Maggie Fox
WASHINGTON - Flu viruses evolve freshly somewhere in east or southeast Asia every year, spreading around the world over the next nine months before dying out, researchers reported on Wednesday. Genetic analysis by two teams of international researchers show that there are just a few initial sources of annual, seasonal influenza epidemics. The viruses spread around the world from these before dying. Then every year, new strains emerge to infect people, according to the studies published in the journals Nature and Science...
Click here to access the full article.

April 8 2008
China Confirms December Case of Human to Human Bird Flu Transmission
CHOSUN ILBO (South Korea)
Chinese health officials have confirmed earlier speculation that a father contracted bird flu from his son last December. Researchers from Beijing's Chinese Center for Disease Control said a 24-year-old man spread the disease to his 52-year-old father in China's eastern province of Jiangsu. The son died, but the father survived. In a report released Tuesday, the researchers said tests showed the two men were infected with almost genetically identical strains of the H5N1 virus. They also found that 91 people who had come into close contact with the men had not been infected with the virus...
Click here to access the full article.

April 2 2008
Dogs catch flu directly from birds, study finds
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN (United States)
by Maggie Fox
WASHINGTON - Dogs can catch influenza directly from birds, Korean researchers said on Wednesday, saying their finding shows pets could play a role in future pandemics. Several pet dogs became ill and died from what turned out to be purely avian strains of seasonal flu virus, the researchers reported in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. "Our data provide evidence that dogs may play a role in interspecies transmission and spread of influenza virus," Daesub Song of Green Cross Veterinary Products Company Ltd in Yong-in, South Korea and colleagues reported...
Click here to access the full article.

March 30 2008
Ducks, people and paddies make deadly bird flu combo
VIETNAMNET BRIDGE (Viet Nam)
Concentrations of ducks, rice paddies and people are primarily responsible for outbreaks of potentially deadly bird flu across Asia, according to The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). "Rather than chickens, (these) are the major factors behind outbreaks of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza in Thailand and Vietnam, and are probably behind outbreak persistence in other countries of the region such as Cambodia and Laos," the Rome-based agency said in a report released on March 26. A group of experts studied a series of outbreaks between early 2004 and late 2005 under senior FAO veterinary officer Jan Slingenbergh with findings published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States...
Click here to access the full article.

March 27 2008
Ducks, people, rice paddies 'equal bird flu'
THE AUSTRALIAN (Australia)
Concentrations of ducks, rice paddies and people are primarily responsible for outbreaks of potentially deadly bird flu across Asia, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said overnight. "Rather than chickens, (these) are the major factors behind outbreaks of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza in Thailand and Vietnam, and are probably behind outbreak persistence in other countries of the region such as Cambodia and Laos," said a report by the Rome-based agency. It said a group of experts had studied a series of outbreaks between early 2004 and late 2005 under senior FAO veterinary officer Jan Slingenbergh, publishing its findings in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States...
Click here to access the full article.

March 24 2008
Portable chips can detect influenza viruses
PRAVDA RU (Russia)
Europe's top semiconductor maker, STMicroelectronics, has developed a portable chip to detect influenza viruses including bird flu in humans. The device, which functions as a mini laboratory on a chip, can screen and identify multiple classes of pathogens and genes in a single diagnostic test within two hours, unlike other tests available on the market that can detect only one strain at a time and require days or weeks to obtain results. The chip can differentiate human strains of the Influenza A and B viruses, drug-resistant strains and mutated variants, including the Avian Flu or H5N1 strain...
Click here to access the full article.

March 23 2008
Nigeria: Bird Flu - FG Pays N623m Compensation to Farmers
ALL AFRICA.COM
by Adekunle Aliyu
The Federal Government has paid N623 million as compensation to poultry farmers whose birds were killed between 2006 and 2008. Dr Junaid Maina, Director of Livestock and Pest Control in the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources said N175 million of the amount came from the Federal Government while the rest was from the World Bank. According to him, 2,733 farmers benefited from the payment...
Click here to access the full article.

March 21 2008
China intensifies efforts to prevent bird flu
CHINA DAILY (China)
BEIJING - China is intensifying the monitoring of bird migration to prevent any further outbreaks of bird flu, Xinhua learnt from the State Forestry Administration on Friday. The administration urged local authorities to beef up epidemic surveillance, raise people's awareness to prevent new outbreaks and offer training to work staff on the treatment of bodies of animals that died from the unidentified diseases. Experts worried migrating birds might transmit the deadly virus if they flew out of the epidemic-stricken areas...
Click here to access the full article.

March 20 2008
Indonesia: US abuses bird flu virus for commercial gain
CHINA DAILY (China)
JAKARTA - Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadhilah Supari has accused the United States of abusing Indonesian bird flu virus for commercial purposes, Antara news agency reported on Thursday. "We sent the virus (to them) for the sake of humanity but they have turned it into vaccines sold everywhere on the pretext of keeping watch for pandemic," Antara news agency Thursday quoted the minister as saying at a discussion on her book titled "It's Time for the World to Change. Devine Hands behind Bird Flu" in Surabaya, the second largest city in the country. On the pretext of keeping watch for pandemic, she said the US and WHO had produced vaccines and sold them to third world countries for millions of dollars...
Click here to access the full article.

March 19 2008
Indonesia needs help fighting bird flu: FAO
KHALEEJ TIMES (United Arab Emirates)
MILAN - Major efforts have done little to control H5N1 avian influenza in Indonesia and the country needs more help in controlling the virus, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Tuesday. Surveillance and response teams are working in 193 out of 448 districts in Indonesia, yet birds in 31 out of 33 provinces are affected, FAO Chief Veterinary Officer Joseph Domenech said in a statement. By June 2008, more than 2,000 surveillance and response teams will be active in more than 300 districts in disease-endemic areas of the country, he said...
Click here to access the full article.

March 14 2008
Avian Flu Epidemic Nothing To Fear Now
THE RISING NEPAL (Nepal)
by Indira Aryal
Although the risk of Avian Influenza (AI), popularly known as bird flu has been averted this year, the fear of the fatal flu could recur next year. With a view to cope with the possible threat of AI in the coming days, the government has introduced a number of programmes from this year. "Until last year, we were in confusion. Thank god! It did not happen to us. But now we are already prepared to tackle with the risks of AI and we have devised a number of programmes to minimize the risks," said Dr. Manas K. Banerjee, Regional Director and Project Coordinator of Avian Influenza Control Project...
Click here to access the full article.

March 12 2008
Spraying away bird flu?
INDEPENDENT ONLINE (South Africa)
Tokyo - Japanese researchers said on Wednesday they were in the final stage of developing a painless bird flu vaccine which is sprayed up the nose instead of being injected. The nasal spray could make it easier to vaccinate people in developing countries with limited medical resources, which have borne the brunt of avian influenza since an outbreak in 2003. Researchers sprayed the vaccine into the noses of mice and monkeys and found it was effective against H5N1, the strain of bird flu that can be deadly for humans, as well as its subtypes...
Click here to access the full article.

March 12 2008
Officials conduct night raids to contain bird flu
GULF TIMES (Qatar)
NEW DELHI: Authorities in West Bengal battling to contain a fresh outbreak of bird flu said they were raiding farms at night to catch chickens and ducks and counter unwilling villagers who have refused to hand over poultry. Only a month after authorities in the eastern state declared that bird flu was under control, a fresh outbreak was reported from the state's Murshidabad district, where 900 backyard poultry died over the last two weeks. Some villagers have also let their poultry loose during the day and hide them inside their homes at night, Subir Bhadra, a senior district official said from Murshidabad...
Click here to access the full article.

March 5 2008
Liberia's Only Veterinarian Wages Lonely Prevention Battle Against Bird Flu
VOICE OF AMERICA (United States)
by Nico Colombant
Liberia has just one veterinarian. As part of his many government duties, the veterinarian, who is also director of livestock resources, helps prevent bird flu, following outbreaks in nearby countries. As VOA's Nico Colombant reports from Careysburg, he often fights a lonely battle. "They did not leave the inside key with me," the guard says. "Oh! You don't have the key to the back door? Nothing? " asks Kpadeh Koikoi. "No," The guard responds. Koikoi expresses surprise when he finds himself locked out of the country's sole veterinary diagnostic lab...
Click here to access the full article.

February 27 2008
WHO plays down bird flu threat in China
INDEPENDENT ONLINE (South Africa)
Beijing - There are no indications that bird flu is becoming a bigger problem in China despite the deaths of three people from the disease in 2007, the World Health Organisation said Wednesday. "The three recent cases were not unexpected considering the winter season and the fact that we know the virus is still circulating in the environment," the WHO's representative in China, Hans Troedsson, said in a statement. "WHO welcomes the capability of the surveillance system in China to detect these three isolated cases. We have no indications of any larger number of undetected cases"...
Click here to access the full article.

February 27 2008
Bird flu alert in China, Pakistan
GULF NEWS (United Arab Emirates)
Beijing: China and Pakistan have announced bird flu outbreaks among poultry, a day after two women, one in China and one in neighbouring Vietnam, died of the virus. The Chinese outbreak, first noticed on February 17 in Zunyi in the southwestern province of Guizhou, had killed nearly 4,000 birds and triggered the culling of more than 238,000, Xinhua news agency said late on Monday, citing the Ministry of Agriculture. China has reported four outbreaks of the disease in poultry since December, when average temperatures across the country hit their lowest in decades. Bird flu tends to be more active in the cold...
Click here to access the full article.

February 26 2008
Culling team members beaten up, five injured in Murshidabad
TIMES OF INDIA (India)
BAHARAMPUR: Five members of a culling team were injured when they were beaten up by villagers on Tuesday at Shamshergunj in West Bengal's bird flu hit Murshidabad district where culling has been taken up again since February 22. District Magistrate, Murshidabad, Subir Bhadra said a 10-member team of the Animal Resources Development department had gone to Phutimari village under Shamsherganj police station to begin culling operations on Tuesday morning. However, angry villagers obstructed them in their work and beat them up. Two homeguards who accompanied the team, fled. Five of the injured were taken to the primary health centre where they were discharged after first aid, the DM said...
Click here to access the full article.

February 26 2008
Vietnam considering using bird flu vaccines on humans
CHINA DAILY (China)
HANOI - Vietnam's biggest vaccine producer is going to ask for approval from the country's Health Ministry to use its bird flu vaccines on humans on a trial basis, according to local newspaper New Hanoi on Tuesday. The Institute of Vaccines and Biological Substances in Nha Trang city, central Khanh Hoa province, which has recently turned out over 5,500 doses of H5N1 bird flu vaccines named Fluvac in labs, wants to conduct clinical vaccination tests on people. Its vaccines used on animals, including white mice, Guinea pigs and roosters have proved effective...
Click here to access the full article.

February 24 2008
KARACHI: 'Bird flu virus to die off by summer'
DAWN (Pakistan)
Since heat destroys the H5N1 virus that causes bird flu, threat to birds and humans is expected to diminish with a rise in mercury level as the summer comes closer. These views were expressed by Dr Faisal Mehmood, Assistant Professor at Infectious Diseases Department of Aga Khan University Hospital, in his presentation at the PMA House on Saturday. He said that avian virus did not affect humans until 1997 when an outbreak of bird flu infected 18 people and caused six deaths in Hong Kong. Since then, human cases of bird flu had been reported in different parts of the world, including Asia and Europe, he added...
Click here to access the full article.

February 22 2008
Indonesia resumes bird flu samples to WHO
INDEPENDENT ONLINE (South Africa)
Jakarta - Indonesia sent 12 bird flu samples to a World Health Organisation laboratory this week for the first time since August 2007, and will try to continue doing so, a health ministry official said on Friday. Indonesia, which is the nation hardest hit by bird flu, had halted sharing samples in December 2006, saying it feared multinational drug companies could use them to develop vaccines that were not affordable for poor countries. In August 2007 it then sent two samples to the WHO to prove the virus had not mutated after the organisation accused Jakarta of putting the world at risk by failing to share its samples...
Click here to access the full article.

February 22 2008
Hot spots for next plague
THE STANDARD (China)
by Richard Ingham
Scores of infectious diseases have emerged to threaten humans in the past decades as viruses leap the species barrier from wild animals and bacteria mutate into antibiotic-resistant strains, scientists reported this week. Presenting the first-ever map of "hot spots" of new infectious diseases, they predict the next pandemic is likeliest to come out of poor tropical countries, where burgeoning human populations come into contact with wildlife. A three-year investigation led by four major institutions tracked 335 incidents since 1940 when a new infectious disease emerged. The category includes HIV/AIDS, which has killed or infected more than 65 million people around the world, and outbreaks of SARS and H5N1 bird flu, which have cost tens of billions of dollars to contain...
Click here to access the full article.

February 17 2008
Bird flu kills 3-year-old boy in Indonesia
KHALEEJ TIMES (United Arab Emirates)
JAKARTA — Bird flu killed a 3-year-old boy and a teenager in Indonesia, the health ministry announced, bringing the country’s death toll from the disease to 105. The latest victim was identified only as Han, a 3-year-old boy from the capital, Jakarta, who died Friday at a hospital in the city, radio El-Shinta reported Saturday. Nyoman Kandun, a senior Health Ministry official, confirmed the report but did not provide details...
Click here to access the full article.

February 10 2008
Link between migratory birds, avian influenza unsubstantiated
THE NEWS INTERNATIONAL (Pakistan)
by M. Waqar Bhatti
There is no scientific evidence available, so far, proving that migratory birds are responsible for the recent or all previous outbreaks of bird flu in Pakistan or elsewhere in the world, said wildlife experts and virologists. They added, however, that the assumption could not be fully rejected as no scientific study has ever been carried out on migratory birds, at least those who travel to Pakistan once every year from Siberia and Russia. It is worth mentioning here that some provincial government officials, after the recent outbreak of bird flu in poultry birds in Pakistan, put the blame on migratory birds saying that they were the only source of spreading avian influenza and its deadly strain H5N1 in local chickens...
Click here to access the full article.

February 6 2008
India culls 3.4m birds but fails to contain avian flu outbreak
FINANCIAL TIMES (United Kingdom)
by Jo Johnson in New Delhi
India is struggling to contain its worst avian influenza -epidemic, in spite of culling 3.4m birds and setting up a 5km poultry exclusion zone round the state of West -Bengal, the epicentre of the outbreak. The government's failure to reassure farmers that they will receive fair compensation for birds culled by rapid response teams has left experts scrambling to stop the disease entering the crowded markets of Calcutta and Delhi and led to a crisis of confidence in India's -poultry industry. The latest outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu, confirmed on January 15, is proving more difficult to contain than earlier manifestations at large poultry farms in the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat in 2006 and, last year, in Manipur...
Click here to access the full article.

January 29 2008
Bird flu cull hit by 'corruption'
BBC NEWS (United Kingdom)
by Subir Bhaumik
Several culling teams have stopped working in districts of West Bengal hit by bird flu, complaining of corruption. They say that they are being put under pressure by local politicians to exaggerate the number of birds killed so that more compensation is paid. Some of the extra money is pocketed by local politicians, they say...
Click here to access the full article.

January 28 2008
India steps up vigil as bird flu spreads
KHALEEJ TIMES (United Arab Emirates)
KOLKATA - Veterinary staff in eastern India are capturing chickens in night-time raids on the backyards of homes to surprise villagers unwilling to part with their poultry as an outbreak of bird flu spread. Bird flu has spread to 13 of West Bengal's 19 districts, with samples of dead chickens testing positive in two new districts, officials said on Monday. Experts fear the H5N1 strain could mutate into a form easily transmitted from person to person, leading to a pandemic, but there have been no reported human infections in India yet...
Click here to access the full article.

January 28 2008
Bird flu: Officials watch 31 people at high risk
BANGKOK POST (Thailand)
The health of 31 people who have come into contact with bird flu-infected poultry will be closely monitored over the next two weeks, the Public Health Ministry said. Thirteen people are being watched in Nakhon Sawan's Chumsaeng district and 18 in Phichit's Sak Lek sub-district, the sites of recent bird flu outbreaks. Health permanent secretary Prat Boonyawongwirote said there was no reason to suspect the people under supervision had contracted the most powerful strain of the virus. They all appeared to be healthy and the observation was just a precaution...
Click here to access the full article.

January 28 2008
Nepal sounds high-alert against bird flu virus
TIMES OF INDIA (India)
KATHMANDU: Nepal has sounded a high-alert against the possible spread of the deadly bird flu virus that has been detected in the neighbouring Indian state of West Bengal. Nepal has already banned the import of poultry from India to check the spread of the disease. Although no bird flu has been detected in Nepal, the government has remained on high-alert as the bordering Indian state of West Bengal has been affected by the outbreak of the flu, said a statement issued by the ministries of Health and Population and Agriculture and Cooperatives...
Click here to access the full article.

January 28 2008
Bird flu claims Indonesian boy's life
GULF NEWS (United Arab Emirates)
Jakarta: A 9-year-old boy has died after contracting bird flu and two other adults have tested positive with the deadly virus, bringing the total number of deaths to 99 the Indonesian health ministry said on Monday. The boy, from Depok, a city on the outskirts of Jakarta, died at a bird-flu designed hospital, a health official said. It is not known if the boy had been in any contact with any chickens. A 32-year-old man and 31-year-old woman, reportedly tested positive for the virus...
Click here to access the full article.

January 25 2008
China confirms that father, son sick with bird flu are country's first family cluster
AOL NEWS (United States)
by Audra Ang
BEIJING - China has confirmed that a father and son who were sickened with bird flu are the country's first infections within the same family, but said their cases showed no evidence that the virus has changed into a form that can easily be passed between humans, according to the World Health Organization. The 24-year-old son from the eastern city of Nanjing died Dec. 2, becoming China's 17th fatality from the H5N1 bird flu virus. His 52-year-old father began showing symptoms a day later and was confirmed to have the disease...
Click here to access the full article.

January 24 2008
Avian flu control starts with police help
THE STATESMAN (India)
MALDA: Despite villagers' resistance the animal resources development officials started culling operations with the help of police in Chanchal block areas in northern part of Malda district this evening. A total of 40 teams, comprising five members in each team, have been deployed this afternoon from Chanchal sub divisional headquarters after medical check-up and training for all workers. A total of 320 local labourers have been engaged for culling. Eight labourers will assist each team. Due to shortage of veterinary doctors, one vet has been engaged for supervising five teams...
Click here to access the full article.

January 18 2008
India, Bangladesh Struggle to Contain Bird Flu Spread
ARAB NEWS (Saudi Arabia)
NEW DELHI/DHAKA — Villagers at the center of a bird flu outbreak in Kolkata refused to hand over their chickens and ducks for culling as India and neighboring Bangladesh struggled to contain the spread of the virus. In Bangladesh, the culling of thousands of fowl went on smoothly after the virus was detected in three more districts. In both countries the virus seemed to be spreading with fresh bird deaths reported from new areas. Neither country has reported any human infection...
Click here to access the full article.

January 10 2008
Benin Voodoo priests trust faith to beat bird flu
REUTERS AFRICA
by Samuel Elijah
COTONOU - Sacrificing chickens in a spray of blood, Benin's traditional priests celebrated Voodoo Day on Thursday and declared their ancient religion would protect them from risk of infection by the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus. The small West African state, home of the Voodoo rituals carried by slaves to the Americas, last month announced at least two cases of bird flu in poultry which tests in Europe confirmed were of the deadly H5N1 strain that can be fatal to humans. After Benin lifted a previous ban on the practice of Voodoo, it was declared an official religion in the former French colony in the mid-1990s and Jan. 10 is celebrated as National Voodoo Day, a public holiday ranking with Christmas and the Muslim Eid...
Click here to access the full article.

January 7 2008
Egyptian woman flees hospital after H5N1 diagnosis
RIA NOVOSTI (Russia)
A 23-year-old woman has escaped from a hospital in Egypt after being preliminary diagnosed with a deadly bird flu virus, local media reported on Monday. The woman was hospitalized last week with high temperature in the town of Tahta in the Upper Egyptian Sohag Governorate. She fled the hospital following the doctors' decision to transfer her to a special clinic. Of 43 Egyptians infected with bird flu, mostly women and children who contracted the virus after coming into contact with infected poultry, 19 have died, four of them in the past two weeks...
Click here to access the full article.

December 31 2007
Egypt reports third bird flu death in week
TURKISH PRESS (Turkey)
An Egyptian woman died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu on Monday, the health ministry said, the third such death in less than a week as officials and experts warned against the relaxation of precautions. Fardos Mohammed Haddad, 36, from the Nile Delta province of Menufia died in hospital after being admitted on Saturday with a high fever and difficulty breathing, ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman Shahin said in a statement carried by the official MENA news agency. Her death, the second in as many days and the third in less than a week, is the 18th death in Egypt from the disease since the virus first appeared in the country in February 2006...
Click here to access the full article.

December 28 2007
WHO experts worried by bird flu transmission
INDEPENDENT ONLINE (South Africa)
Experts with the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday confirmed the first case of inter-human transmission of bird flu in Pakistan, but ruled out any risk of a widespread outbreak. Laboratory tests established that the person had been infected with the potentially fatal H5N1 strain of the virus, even though had not been in contact with contaminated poultry. "Because we have an individual not directly exposed to sick birds suggests a limited human-to-human transmission," said spokesperson John Rainford told reporters...
Click here to access the full article.

December 28 2007
Boy becomes fifth victim of avian flu in Vietnam
TAIPEI TIMES (Taiwan)
A four-year-old boy in Vietnam has died of bird flu, becoming the nation's fifth victim of the H5N1 viral strain reported this year, a health ministry official said yesterday. "He tested positive to the H5N1 virus late last week," health ministry administrative office director Tran Hung said. "It is the first human case of H5N1 in about four months in Vietnam." The child from Moc Chau in the mountainous northern Son La Province was admitted to a local hospital on Dec. 11 with high fever and pneumonia...
Click here to access the full article.

December 27 2007
After a decade, bird flu still baffles scientists as it becomes part of daily life for many
AOL News (United States)
by Margie Mason
Baffled scientists first watched a mysterious virus called H5N1 jump from birds to humans a decade ago in Hong Kong, killing six people and forcing the territory to slaughter its entire poultry population. It quieted for a while, but resurfaced in 2003 with even more questions. Bird flu has since spread to more than 60 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East, killing at least 209 people along with hundreds of millions of birds. Pakistan and Myanmar are the latest to experience its migration, both reporting their first human infections earlier this month. Indonesia, the world's hardest-hit country, reported its 94th death Wednesday...
Click here to access the full article.

December 27 2007
Indonesian death, colder weather signal new Asia bird-flu season
THE STANDARD (Hong Kong)
by Timothy Chui
The death of a 24-year-old Indonesian woman from H5N1 has stoked fears of human-to-human transmission of avian flu as the region enters a new bird-flu season. "The woman died early on Christmas Day and tested positive for bird flu," said Muhammad Nadhirin, an official with the Health Ministry's bird flu information center. It is not yet known how she contracted the virus. There have been five other bird-flu deaths in Indonesia since October, making it the hardest hit country with 94 deaths. According to a Hong Kong pathologist, there is evidence of a few clusters of human-to-human transmission when looking at the past decade of bird-flu incidents in Asia...
Click here to access the full article.

December 25 2007
Bird flu outbreak in south Russia spreads
RIA NOVOSTI (Russia)
A fifth case of bird flu has been confirmed at a farm in the Rostov Region, south Russia, close to the site of previous outbreaks, the regional emergencies ministry said. "The outbreak at two smallholdings was registered on Saturday, samples were taken and sent for analysis, they came back positive for bird flu," the ministry said. All 79 birds on the smallholding have been culled. A quarantine zone has been introduced in the Tselinsky district near the site of the first case of the deadly virus...
Click here to access the full article.

December 19 2007
Investigation launched into possible transfer of bird flu among humans
GULF NEWS (United Arab Emirates)
Islamabad: A World Health Organisation team began piecing together Pakistan's first human bird flu cases on Tuesday to try and determine whether human-to-human transmission may have occurred. The health experts visited a hospital in the northwestern city Peshawar that treated many of the eight patients suspected of being infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus. They were working with doctors and nurses on how to handle suspected cases and improve infection control measures...
Click here to access the full article.

December 16 2007
Myanmar stresses effective prevention of human bird flu infection
CHINA VIEW (China)
A high-ranking Myanmar health official has stressed the urgent need for drawing plan and introducing fresh measures for effective prevention of human infection of bird flu in the country in the wake of first such infection being reported in the country recently, according to Sunday's state media. "Priority is to be given to the prevention of bird flu virus strain as mortality rate is much higher than that caused by SARS," warned Deputy Health Minister Dr. Mya Oo when he coordinated with senior health officials in the new capital of Nay Pyi Taw Saturday on the matter dealing with prevention of current human bird flu infection in the country's border area, said the New Light of Myanmar...
Click here to access the full article.

December 4 2007
'Manipur bird flu unsafe for humans'
THE TIMES OF INDIA (India)
NEW DELHI: The bird flu virus, that was detected in Manipur in July, was the highly pathogenic Qinghai strain, which is capable of infecting humans. Genetic sequencing of the virus, isolated from the small poultry farm at Chingmeirong in Imphal East district, which reported the outbreak, has shown it to be similar to the virus that originated in China’s mid-western province of Qinghai. The Qinghai strain, which has now reached at least 50 countries, has a mutation that helps the virus grow at temperatures found in human noses, which are cooler than the insides of the bird's intestines...
Click here to access the full article.

November 26 2007
Richer nations refuse sharing bird flu virus samples
CHINA DAILY (China)
Richer nations and drugmakers refused to share their bird flu virus samples which upset developing countries that wanted to develop cheap vaccines by the virus samples, media reported Monday. Developing states like Indonesia - which with 91 of the 206 human bird flu deaths since 2003 is the hardest hit country - want guarantees from richer nations and drugmakers that they will have access to cheap vaccines if they share samples...
Click here to access the full article.

November 24 2007
Myanmar reports bird flu outbreak at chicken farm in northeast
THE STAR ONLINE (Malaysia)
Myanmar has reported an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus at a chicken farm in the northeast, state media and an international livestock health agency said Saturday. Unusual deaths of chickens at a farm in a village in Shan State's Keng Tung township were reported on Nov. 18, and laboratory tests confirmed that H5N1 was detected in some of them, the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported. According to the Myanmar government's report to the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health, 2,058 of the farm's 2,591 susceptible birds had died in the outbreak, and the other 533 were slaughtered to prevent the virus from spreading...
Click here to access the full article.

November 22 2007
Britain to offer vaccines in case of flu outbreak
PRAVDA RU (Russia)
Britain is going to provide the entire population with vaccines in the case of a flu pandemic. Health Secretary Alan Johnson said a flu pandemic was "one of the most severe risks" facing the country, telling lawmakers that he had signed an agreement to secure the delivery of enough pandemic flu vaccines to cover every citizen. Experts would formulate a vaccine once the strain of the virus has been identified, but it would take several months before a vaccine could be produced and distributed to the population...
click here to access the full article.

November 21 2007
Shoura Calls for Quick Steps to Contain Bird Flu
ARAB NEWS
The Shoura Council has urged the health and agriculture ministries to take quick measures to eradicate bird flu in the Kingdom and keep the public updated about the deadly virus. During a meeting in Riyadh, many Shoura members called upon the ministers of health and agriculture to explain to the public the reason for the bird flu outbreak in the Riyadh region. Al-Watan Arabic daily carried photographs of an Agriculture Ministry team in masks and white coats in the Aziziya market south of Riyadh, saying bird flu cases had been found there. It was not clear what strain of the bird flu virus had been detected...
Click here to access the full article.

November 22 2007
Saudi ministers need to explain reason for bird flu outbreak
KHALEEJ TIMES (United Arab Emirates)
by Habib Shaikh
The Saudi Shoura Council members have called upon the ministers of health and agriculture to explain to the public the reason for the bird flu outbreak in the Riyadh region, and has urged the ministries to take quick measures to eradicate the disease in the kingdom and keep the public updated about the deadly virus. In view of the arrival of thousands of pilgrims for Haj this year, which is less than a month away, Saudi authorities have taken ll measures to contain the outbreak...
Click here to access the full article.

November 20 2007
Indonesia and U.S. square off at bird flu talks
REUTERS
by Stephanie Nebehay
Indonesia on Tuesday called for countries who share bird flu virus samples to have full control of their use andaccess to vaccines developed from them, but the United States ruled out any automatic reward for sharing. Indonesia, the nation worst hit by bird flu with 91 human deaths, has held back most of its virus samples and demanded guarantees that poor countries get access to affordable pandemic vaccines derived from them. Speaking at the start of a four-day meeting hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO), Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari said developing countries were being denied their "sovereign rights" over bird flu virus samples sent to the WHO, a United Nations agency...
Click here to access the full article.

November 15 2007
Outbreak of lethal bird flu confirmed in England
THE MANILA TIMES
Veterinary authorities confirmed an outbreak of the potentially lethal Asian strain of bird flu in eastern England on Tuesday, in a new blow to the British farming industry. More than 6,000 poultry were ordered to be slaughtered at the site in Suffolk, where an exclusion zone was imposed on Monday after a suspected outbreak was found. “I can now confirm that the strain of avian influenza found in the infected premises is the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 strain,” said deputy chief veterinary officer Fred Landeg...
Click here to access the full article.

November 15 2007
Quick govt action key for bird flu fight-study
REUTERS
by Michael Kahn
Quick government action and clear communication with the public are needed to contain bird flu cases in humans, Turkish researchers said on Thursday. The researchers were reviewing how Turkey handled an outbreak that killed four people in 2006 - the first human victims reported outside China and Southeast Asia after the H5N1 bird flu strain reemerged in 2003. The rapid response overcame the impact of nervous health-care workers who felt ill-prepared to deal with the outbreak and poor coordination between human and animal health services, the researchers reported in the journal BioMed Central Public Health...
Click here to access the full article.

November 9 2007
UN warns of possible sharp rise in bird flu outbreaks ahead of Northern Hemisphere winter
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
Asia must keep watch for a sharp rise in bird flu outbreaks as winter approaches, the top U.N. influenza official said Friday, calling illnesses from animals "one of the greatest threats to the survival of the human race." "The northern winter seems to be a time when the risk of the disease in poultry increases, and it's partly to do with the fact that this virus quite likes cold weather," said David Nabarro, the U.N. coordinator for avian flu and influenza. Birds migrating from Asia to the south and west in winter could also carry the disease to new areas, Nabarro told The Associated Press in Tokyo...
Click here to access the full article.

November 5 2007
Indonesian woman dies of bird flu
CHINA VIEW (China)
A 30-year-old Indonesian woman from an outskirts city of Jakarta has died of bird flu, the health ministry said here Monday. Laboratory tests indicated that the woman, from Tanggerang city who died on Saturday in a designed-bird flu hospital of Persahabatan in east Jakarta, was positively contracted by avian influenza, an official of the anti-bird flu center of the ministry Djoko Suyono said. "She was dead on Saturday. Two of laboratory tests showed that she is positive of bird flu," he told Xinhua...
Click here to access the full article.

October 27 2007
Bird Flu Finds Children's Lungs Faster
SCIENCE DAILY
New findings, reported in the journal Respiratory Research, about how the virus binds to the respiratory tract and lung suggest children may be particularly susceptible to avian influenza. The results also mean that previous receptor distribution studies may have to be re-evaluated. John Nicholls and colleagues at the University of Hong Kong and Adelaide Women and Children's Hospital, in Australia, describe a modified technique to visualize the putative receptors for influenza viruses in the upper and lower respiratory tract, including the lung...
Click here to access the full article.

October 21 2007
Uganda: Bird Flu Spreads Among Humans - WHO
ALL AFRICA.COM
by Hilary Bainemigisha
THE H5N1 strain of bird flu has finally managed to spread from person to person, according to officials of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Until now, it was spread from birds to humans. They warned that if the bird flu virus mutated to easily spread between humans, it could spark a global pandemic, killing millions. According to a new study of deaths in Indonesia last year, bird flu could have spread between humans on several occasions. Person to person infection was suspected but could not be confirmed...

Click here to access the full article.

October 9 2007
Nigerian gov't pays 4.3m dollars to bird flu affected farmers
RELIEF WEB
Nigerian federal government has so far paid 546 million naira (about 4.3 million U.S. dollars) as compensation to poultry farmers affected by the outbreak of bird flu in 25 states and the federal capital Abuja, according to a government official's disclosure in Gusau of the country's northwestern Zamfara State on Tuesday. Abba Ruma, the minister of agriculture and water resources, said while presenting check to poultry farmers whose birds were culled due to the avian influenza disease. Ruma was represented by Dantani Sa'idu, deputy director in charge of livestock and pest control services. According to him, the government has in addition, released another 103 million naira (about 810,000 dollars) for the payment of the compensation which started on Monday...
Click here to access the full article.

October 5 2007
H5N1 virus 'now infects people more easily'
INDEPENDENT ONLINE (South Africa)
by Maggie Fox
The H5N1 bird flu virus has mutated to infect people more easily, although it still has not transformed into a pandemic strain, researchers said on Thursday. The changes are worrying, said Dr Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "We have identified a specific change that could make bird flu grow in the upper respiratory tract of humans," said Kawaoka, who led the study. "The viruses that are circulating in Africa and Europe are the ones closest to becoming a human virus," Kawaoka said...
Click here to access the full article.

October 1 2007
Jakarta man becomes 86th bird flu victim
GULF NEWS (United Arab Emirates)
Jakarta: A 21-year-old Indonesian man from West Jakarta has died of bird flu, taking the death toll to 86, a health ministry official said on Monday. Experts are still investigating how the man contracted the virus, said Tini Suryanti, spokesman of the Jakarta health office. "We don't know how he could have come in contact with sick chicken, since backyard poultry has long been banned by the city government," Suryanti said...
Click here to access the full article.

September 29 2007

Studies urged as H5N1 virus found in dead fetus

THE STANDARD (China)

by Carol Chung

The deadly H5N1 bird flu virus can spread not only to the lungs, but also the placenta of a pregnant woman and the fetus, an autopsy shows. But a pathologist and microbiologist described the finding as "not surprising and worrying" if the virus does not damage the fetus' organs. According to a joint US-China post-mortem study of a 24-year-old pregnant mainland woman, who died from H5N1 infection in 2005, viral genetic material and antigens were found not only in her lungs, where the H5N1 virus is known to mostly lodge, but also her trachea, lymph nodes and brain neurons...

Click here to access the full article.

September 27 2007

Bird flu forces Bangladesh to cull chickens

REUTERS ALERTNET

Bangladesh culled some 5,000 chickens after bird flu infected a farm in the northern region of the country, officials said on Thursday. "The chickens were buried on Wednesday after H5N1 virus was detected at a farm near Bogra district town 250 km (150 miles) (156 miles) north of the capital Dhaka," an official of the livestocks department said...

Click here to access the full article.

September 24 2007

Bird flu stalking Tanzanian communities, govt...

IPP MEDIA (Tanzania)

by Anaclet Rwegayura

The government has warned that Tanzania was still at the risk of avian flu, and urged the general public to understand the disease and adopt basic hygiene practices for self-protection. Livestock Development deputy minister Charles Mlingwa said in Addis Ababa last week that though Tanzania was prepared for any eventuality with regard to bird flu, an outbreak of the highly pathogenic disease could have serious socio-economic repercussions on domestic poultry production and public health. Addressing the third general assembly and executive meeting of the African Livestock Development (ALive) platform, Mlingwa said a multisectoral emergency preparedness and response plan was already in place to deal with bird flu in the country...

Click here to access the full article.

September 24 2007

Device to detect bird flu virus created

CHINA DAILY (China)

Researchers in Singapore have created a handheld device that can detect the H5N1 bird flu virus from throat swab samples in under 30 minutes, raising hopes it will lead to rapid detection and containment of the virus. Conventional laboratory tests take around 4 hours, and require machines to first isolate and amplify the virus before it is tested. Writing in the latest issue of Nature Medicine, the scientists said the new device would allow decentralized testing of the H5N1 virus, especially in countries that lack basic public health resources...

Click here to access the full article.

September 23 2007

Africa needs funds to combat bird flu

DAWN (Pakistan)

African nations are concerned that a slump in funding from the international community could hamper their efforts to combat bird flu on the continent, officials said. "The main challenge today in our efforts to combat bird flu in Africa is the level of funding," Modibo Traore, head of the African Union's Inter-African Bureau of Animal Resources, told AFP. He was speaking after a meeting of experts designed to unify African efforts against the epidemic that wrapped up Friday in Addis Ababa...

Click here to access the full article.

September 17 2007

Mutation fears in bird-flu outbreak

THE STANDARD (China)

By Carol Chung

Nearly 10,000 ducks that died of bird flu at farms near Guangzhou's Panyu district had been vaccinated against the disease, sparking fears the deadly H5N1 virus may have mutated. According to Guangdong Animal Epidemic Prevention Center director Yu Yedong, the 9,800 ducks that died at Sixian village had been vaccinated. But he added the first vaccination could only be 65 percent effective, while a second shot would have made it 90 percent...

Click here to access the full article.

September 12 2007

Global fatality rate from bird flu at 61 percent

KOREA.NET (Korea)

Approximately six out of 10 people around the world who have contracted bird flu have died, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said Wednesday (September 12), stressing the need for improved contingency systems."A total of 328 human cases and 200 deaths from avian influenza had been reported in 12 countries worldwide since 2003, with a case fatality rate of 61 percent," Shigeru Omi, WHO's regional director for the Western Pacific, said at the 58th WHO Western Pacific Regional Committee meeting held on Jeju-do Island, Korea's southernmost island...

Click here to access the full article.

September 11 2007

Complacency on bird flu will be deadly - WHO

INDEPENDANT ONLINE (South Africa)

Jeju Island, South Korea - The World Health Organisation warned on Monday against complacency in the fight against bird flu, saying another human influenza pandemic is inevitable sooner or later. "I am often asked if the effort invested in pandemic preparedness is a waste of resources," director general Margaret Chan told a regional meeting of the world organisation. "Has public health cried wolf too often and too loudly?" she said in a speech. "Not at all. Pandemics are recurring events. We do not know whether the H5N1 (avian influenza) virus will cause the next pandemic. But we do know this: the world will experience another influenza pandemic sooner or later"...

Click here to access the full article.

September 2 2007

WHO confirms five human bird flu cases in Vietnam

CHINA DAILY (China)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed five human bird flu cases in Vietnam, four of them fatal, the U.N. agency said in a statement. The four, including two women, died between June 21 and August 3 while a fifth person, a 29-year-old man, had recovered, it said. All five cases, which had been confirmed earlier by Vietnam-based laboratory tests, were from the country's north. They brought the total human infections in the Southeast Asian country since 2003 to 100 with 46 fatalities...

Click here to access the full article.

August 31 2007

Person-to-person bird flu confirmed

THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (Australia)

by Mark Forbes

BIRD flu has spread between humans on several occasions, a new study of deaths in Indonesia last year has found. When seven members of a Sumatran village family died last May, the spread of H5N1 avian influenza virus from person to person was suspected but could not be confirmed. A study of the outbreak by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle, Washington, has for the first time proved the virus spread between a "cluster" of people, researchers said...

Click here to access the full article.

August 27 2007

Bird flu feared in another Bali death

The Manila Times (Philippines)

JAKARTA: An Indonesian woman suspected of being infected with bird flu has died in Bali, hospital sources said Sunday, stoking fears of a wider outbreak on the resort island. Samples from the 43-year-old woman, a resident of the island's main city Denpasar, have been sent to Jakarta for testing, said Putu Andrika, head of the bird flu control unit at Sanglah general hospital. Two tests must come back positive for the H5N1 virus before a victim is confirmed as part of the official bird flu death toll in Indonesia, which is the highest in the world at 84...

Click here to access the full article.

August 24 2007

How one nation's fears delayed bird flu vaccine

THE GUARDIAN (United Kingdom)

by Ian MacKinnon

Four times Indonesia has agreed to share samples of the bird flu virus with the World Health Organisation and four times Jakarta has reneged on the deal. The WHO's protracted battle with Indonesia over the H5N1 virus, the strain needed to develop a vaccine, underlines the difficulties of combating global health crises without international cooperation. Indonesia is the country hardest hit by human avian influenza, suffering 81 of the 192 fatalities reported in the past four years. However it is locked in a conflict with the WHO as to who would benefit from the development of any vaccine against a deadly pandemic...

Click here to access the full article.

August 23 2007

Bird flu 'not mutating'

THE NATION (Thailand)

by Pongphon Sarnsamak

After years of warnings that the bird flu virus H5N1 could mutate into a strain that would spread easily among humans and create a pandemic, no signs had emerged that this was happening yet, the Disease Control Department (DCD) says. DCD director general Dr Thawat Suntrajarn said the agency had closely monitored changes in the virus and found the genomic sequence of the H5N1 virus had still not altered into a dangerous pandemic strain. "The results from laboratory testing have found there has been a small change of amino acids within the bird flu virus, but this alteration has still not developed into the mutation stage," Thawat said...

Click here to access the full article.

August 23 2007

Infectious diseases spreading faster

GULF NEWS (United Arab Emirates)

Geneva: Infectious diseases are emerging more quickly around the globe, spreading faster and becoming increasingly difficult to treat, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday. In its annual World Health Report, the United Nations agency warned there was a good possibility that another major scourge like AIDS, SARS or Ebola fever with the potential of killing millions would appear in the coming years. "Infectious diseases are now spreading geographically much faster than at any time in history," the WHO said...

Click here to access the full article.

August 21 2007

Study finds key markers for bird flu change

REUTERS

by Maggie Fox

WASHINGTON - Researchers have found some of the changes that a flu virus needs to become a deadly pandemic strain, and said on Tuesday the H5N1 avian influenza virus has so far made only a few of them. They said their study can help scientists watch for the mutations most likely to make H5N1 a global threat. David Finkelstein of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, and colleagues looked at H5N1 virus samples from people who had been infected. They found none were anywhere near as mutated as flu viruses that caused the three most recent pandemics, notably the 1918 "Spanish flu" that killed millions worldwide...

Click here to access the full article.

August 18 2007

West Africa Struggles to Contain Bird Flu Virus

VOA NEWS (Senegal)

by Phuong Tran

The West African country of Togo recently announced more bird flu infections outside its capital, making it the seventh West African country to report finding the deadly H5N1 virus in its poultry. Bird flu experts say sub-Saharan Africa still has a long way to go in its battle against the virus, and any other animal diseases that may develop. Togo's government officials say they have been working with farmers since early last year to ask them to report any signs of the virus...

Click here to access the full article.

August 14 2007

"Uncontrolled" bird flu in region worries India

KHALEEJ TIMES (United Arab Emirates)

NEW DELHI - India is intensifying preparations to deal with avian influenza as it borders countries with "uncontrolled outbreaks" in poultry and is also close to nations with human cases, its top health official said. Federal Health Secretary Naresh Dayal referred to Myanmar and Bangladesh - which have seen several outbreaks in poultry this year and share a long border with India's remote northeast. "We are surrounded by countries with uncontrolled outbreaks in poultry and birds," Dayal told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. "And further, there is Vietnam and Indonesia"...

Click here to access the full article.

August 10 2007

New vaccine may beat bird flu before it starts

MAIL & GUARDIAN (South Africa)

bY Maggie Fox

Researchers studying bird flu viruses said on Thursday they may have come up with a way to vaccinate people before a feared influenza pandemic. Experts have long said there is no way to vaccinate people against a new strain of influenza until that strain evolves. That could mean months or even years of disease and death before a vaccination campaign began. But a team at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in Maryland and the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta said they may have found a short-cut...

Click here to access the full article.

August 7 2007

Bird flu kills Vietnamese student: Report

THE TIMES OF INDIA (India)

HANOI: A 22-year-old Vietnamese university student died on Tuesday from the H5N1 strain of bird flu, the country's fourth victim of avian influenza this year, state television reported. "According to health ministry sources, a 22-year-old university student studying in Hanoi and originally from Thanh Hoa province has died today in Hanoi from bird flu," said the news channel. "He was the fourth victim of bird flu in Vietnam this year," he added...

Click here to access the full article.

August 2 2007

Manipur to stamp out birds from backyard farms

GULF NEWS (United Arab Emirates)

Imphal/New Delhi: Nearly 200,000 poultry have been culled in Manipur in the drive against bird flu and authorities have decided to begin a second round. Health officials yesterday said more than 300 people are under special medical supervision though no human has contracted the disease so far. The first phase of culling is likely to end today and the second one is to stamp out birds from backyard farms...

Click here to access the full article.

July 25 2007

Bird flu hits Manipur; govt plans ahead

INDIA TIMES (India)

NEW DELHI: UPA Government has woken up from deep slumber after 133 chicken deaths have been reported from Manipur due to the deadly bird flu. Sources divulged that following consultations with Prime Minister's Office (PMO), the centre has decided to set up a central control room in the Agriculture Ministry to prevent spread of bird flu to other parts of the country. The control room that will also have officials from Health and Animal Husbandry Departments will send out alerts across the country and seek information on any suspected cases of 'bird flu' in their respective areas...

Click here to access the full article.

July 24 2007

Kenya still prone to bird flu outbreak, says Nyikal

THE STANDARD (Kenya)

by Elizabeth Mwai

Kenya is at risk of bird flu following outbreaks in the neighbouring regions, the Ministry of Health has warned. Cases of Avian influenza have been reported in Sudan, Egypt, Nigeria and Cameroon. The Director of Medical Services, Dr James Nyikal, on Monday said Kenya was not safe from the flu. "The whole world is at risk and we have been working for the past two years on formulating a national taskforce and a strategic plan," Nyikal said...

Click here to access the full article.

July 24 2007

Gov't livid about bird flu recurrence despite vaccination

THANHNIEN NEWS (Vietnam)

The Vietnamese government has instructed agencies concerned to investigate and punish those responsible for the recurrence of bird flu in a southern province despite a mass inoculation program. In a dispatch last week Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat told the ministry's Agriculture Project, the Vietnam Breeding Corporation, and the Veterinary Bureau to find out why vaccinated chickens had died en masse in Dong Thap last week...

Click here to access the full article.

July 23 2007

Egyptian woman tests positive for bird flu - WHO

THE STAR ONLINE (Malaysia)

CAIRO - A 25-year-old Egyptian woman has tested positive for the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, bringing the number of human cases in the most populous Arab country to 38, a World Health Organisation official said on Sunday. "There is a case," said John Jabbour of the World Health Organisation in Cairo, adding that the woman was believed to have fallen ill after contact with dead household birds. Egypt's state news agency MENA identified the woman as Naima Abdu Gamil of the Nile Delta province of Damietta, in northern Egypt. It said she developed a high fever on Friday and was in good condition after receiving the antiviral drug Tamiflu...

Click here to access the full article.

July 23 2007

Two die in Vietnam from pig virus, bird flu returns

REUTERS

by Ho Binh Minh

HANOI - Two people have died in northern Vietnam from a virus that has killed thousands of pigs in recent weeks while bird flu has returned to the central region, killing hundreds of ducks, government and media reports said. Twenty two people, most from northern areas, have been taken to a Hanoi hospital so far this year after they fell sick from the Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) virus, the Vietnam News Agency said on Monday. Two of the infected had died, it said without giving more details...

Click here to access the full article.

July 19 2007

Ghana: Fighting Bird Flu is His Business

ALL AFRICA.COM

By 5 a.m. each morning, Joseph Hillmends has arrived at one of the poultry farms near Accra. He stops 100 meters from the farm's entrance to put on a white jumpsuit, gloves, a facemask and green plastic goggles. On hot days, this outfit can be stifling. But he needs the protection. Hillmends is a principal bird technician, and his job is to investigate farms for signs of avian influenza-bird flu. Ghana has had an avian influenza task force in place since 2005. Publicity campaigns - many featuring volunteers in chicken suits - was used to educate the public about the disease. Posters in cheerful colors advised that "Only you can stop bird flu..."

Click here to access the full article.

July 18 2007

Chan warns over extent of killer flu

THE STANDARD (China)

About 20 percent of the population in some countries could be affected in the event of a global flu pandemic, World Health Organization director-general Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun said. And the severity of the disease "would range from mild to severe," she said yesterday in Geneva. Scientists fear that the H5N1 bird flu virus currently affecting parts of Asia and the Middle East could mutate into a more virulent form that spreads easily among humans, leading to a global pandemic with the potential to kill millions...

Click here to access the full article.

July 17 2007

US report card shows work ahead for bird flu plan

REUTERS

by Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON - The United States has helped many countries watch and prepare for a bird flu pandemic, but lacks the rapid tests and hospital capacity to cope with one at home, the White House said on Tuesday. The federal government issued a report card one year after it released a pandemic influenza plan, and said agencies had finished many of the hundreds of tasks assigned. But some of the most difficult tasks remain, including the ability to quickly detect the spread of disease, capacity to make vaccines quickly and in large-enough amounts, and detailed plans on who gets drugs and vaccines if a pandemic hits...

Click here to access the full article.

July 12 2007

Bird flu boy had no link to poultry

THE STANDARD (China)

A six-year-old Indonesian boy who died of bird flu last weekend had no apparent contact with poultry, a top official fighting the virus revealed Wednesday. The boy, from Cilegon in Banten province, just west of Jakarta, was Indonesia's 81st bird flu victim. Contact with infected birds is the most common form of transmission of the virus to humans. Memed Zulkarnaen, director of the Agriculture Ministry's bird flu unit, said no infected poultry had been found within a radius of 300 meters of the boy's home. "The Indonesian medical community is still puzzled," he said. "We are puzzled because the H5N1 virus needs to 'stick' to an object...and cannot circulate freely in the air..."

Click here to access the full article.

July 9 2007

Public Health Ministry adopts anti-influenza, bird flu measures

MCOT NEWS (Thailand)

Thailand's Public Heath Minister Dr. Mongkol Na Songkhla Monday ordered local health officials to be on alert for a possible outbreak of influenza and bird flu in this rainy season and to offer free influenza vaccination to the elderly in the five southern border provinces. Launching a flu vaccination campaign at Songkhla hospital, the public health minister said provincial public health offices have received directives to monitor the diseases in humans and animals and to inspect development of the virus strain...

Click here to access the full article.

July 3 2007

Bird flu cooling down in Vietnam

CHINA VIEW (China)

HANOI - Eight Vietnamese provinces and one city have met criteria for announcing an end to bird flu outbreaks in their territory, reducing the number of affected localities nationwide to nine, according to a local animal health agency on Tuesday. Seven northern localities, and two southern ones have detected no new outbreaks for at least three weeks, meeting the criteria, said the Department of Animal Health under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Bird flu, starting to strike Vietnam in December 2003, has hit 18 Vietnamese cities and provinces nationwide since early May...

Click here to access the full article.

June 23 2007

Indonesian girl has bird flu, says official

GULF NEWS (United Arab Emirates)

Jakarta: A 3-year-old Indonesian girl has tested positive for bird flu and is being treated at a hospital in Sumatra, a health ministry official said on Saturday. The girl, from the town of Rumbai in Riau Province, fell sick on Wednesday and is being treated at the Arifin Achmad hospital in Pakanbaru...

Click here to access the full article.

June 22 2007

Bird smugglers under tight watch to stop deadly virus

THE STANDARD (China)

by Winnie Chong

Measures to combat bird flu are being stepped up, including a crackdown on the smuggling of birds into Hong Kong from the mainland, health chief York Chow Yat-ngok said. Speaking at a two-day meeting among Hong Kong, Guangdong, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Macau officials to discuss health, animal and plant quarantine and food safety controls, Chow said there have been 10 cases of birds dying from the deadly H5N1 virus in the territory so far this year. He said customs officials have been taking further steps to deal with bird smuggling as Hong Kong is now facing a bigger threat from avian flu...

Click here to access the full article.

June 22 2007

Indonesia says plans to use human bird flu vaccine

REUTERS

JAKARTA - A vaccine to combat human bird flu could be ready as early as July, Indonesia said on Friday, adding it was prepared to use it immediately despite calls from the WHO to build up a stockpile first. Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari said the World Health Organisation's advice was not realistic in the case of Indonesia, which has the highest number of bird flu deaths. "WHO urged us to stockpile first. That may work for developed countries, where human cases are yet to appear. But we already have human cases, we are in the middle of a war and we should not be stockpiling anymore," she said. WHO officials declined immediately to comment...

Click here to access the full article.

June 22 2007

H5N1 bird flu virus confirmed in Czech Republic

CHINA DAILY (China)

Hundreds of turkeys at a farm in eastern Czech Republic were killed by the H5N1 bird flu virus, the State Veterinary Administration confirmed on Thursday. Tests in the National Reference Laboratory in Prague showed that the turkeys in Zalsi, east Bohemia area of the country, were killed by the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus. Veterinaries believe that the turkeys bred at the farm possibly got infected through hay litter, which came from a pond and could be contaminated by droppings of birds living in the wild...

Click here to access the full article.

June 17 2007

Nigeria: Community News From Kano, Katsina And Jigawa

ALL AFRICA.COM

by Hassan A. Karofi

Since last year when the avian Flu virus epidemic broke out in Kano hundreds of farmers lost thousands of their birds, most not because they were all affected, but largely because the officials advised that since some of the flocks became infected it was advisable to rid the entire farms of all the species, and a new stock brought in. Since then, several farms in the state became prostrate and the businesses of the farm owners equally suffered same fate. However, what followed thereafter was a selective compensation that is now generating controversies and threatening the lives of poultry consumers in the state...

Click here to access the full article.

June 13 2007

Sharing bird flu virus samples must benefit all: WHO

KHALEEJ TIMES (United Arab Emirates)

SEATTLE - The sharing of virus samples found in bird flu victims must be fostered by providing equal access to vaccines resulting from that information, the World Health Organization’s top bird flu official said on Tuesday. David Heymann, assistant director-general for communicable diseases at the WHO, said bird flu virus samples are tradable goods and must be treated as such by drug companies and industrialized countries. "We must figure the right way to move ahead to make sure that sharing of these public goods - the viruses - also leads to sharing of the benefits," said Heymann during a panel discussion about pandemic diseases at the Pacific Health Summit in Seattle. "We have to take this to heart very clearly..."

Click here to access the full article.

June 13 2007

Vietnam's southern metro to implement bird flu checks on visitors

THANH NIEN NEWS (Vietnam)

Under an anti-bird flu program issued by the Health Department Tuesday, visitors coming from high bird-flu risk areas would be scrutinized by body-temperature checks. Those showing signs of the disease's symptoms are to be isolated and hospitalized while the immediate area is sterilized. Also on Tuesday, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat urged localities to intensify vaccination measures and hold tight to the strict ban on poultry from infected areas...

Click here to access the full article.

June 11 2007

Private sector needs contingency plan for bird flu pandemic

THE STAR (Malaysia)

KUALA LUMPUR: The private sector is still unaware of the risks from bird flu and the Health Ministry wants a contingency plan to be drawn up by the sector in the event of a pandemic hitting the country. "What we do have is a private sector that is not fully aware of the risk. If there is a pandemic affecting the country, there will be a disruption of essential services like electricity, water, financial and transport because of high absenteeism..."

Click here to access the full article.

June 6 2007

WHO dismisses new fears over bird flu following outbreaks in Vietnam

CHINA VIEW (China)

The World Health Organization (WHO) said there was no new evidence that the H5N1 virus has become more easily transmittable from poultry to humans, local newspaper Vietnam News reported Friday. The comments by WHO's communications officer in Vietnam Dida Connor follow fears of a potential new outbreak of bird flu among humans. Two local people have recently been confirmed to have contracted bird flu in the two northern provinces of Vinh Phuc and Thai Nguyen...

Click here to access the full article.

June 1 2007

Bird flu waning but global pandemic risk still high

THE STAR (Malaysia)

by Sybille de La Hamaide

The spread of bird flu may be waning but the world must keep up its guard against the threat of a human influenza pandemic, which is almost certain in the longer term, senior health experts said on Thursday. Senior international bird flu experts meeting at the Anti-Avian Influenza conference in Paris said the rise in the rise in the number of cases both in birds and in humans had slackened, especially since the start of this year.
Click here to access the full article.

May 25 2007

Vietnam reports more bird flu in poultry

CHINA DAILY (China)

HANOI - Bird flu has struck poultry in two more places in northern Vietnam, officials said on Friday, two days after reporting the first human case in a year and a half. Tests on ducks and chickens at poultry farms in the port city of Haiphong and in Bac Giang province showed they were infected with the H5N1 virus, the Animal Health Department said. The department also said there had been fresh outbreaks in the previously hit northern provinces of Quang Ninh and Nam Dinh, killing ducks and chickens that had not been vaccinated...

Click here to access the full article.

May 25 2007

Bird flu pandemic is inevitable, expert says after new outbreak

THE TIMES ONLINE (United Kingdom)

by Melanie Reid

The director of Britain's new centre for avian flu research said yesterday that it was a question of "not if but when" the disease would cause a pandemic. Professor Tony Nash was speaking on the day that an outbreak of the flu was confirmed on a farm in North Wales, the third incidence in Britain. Professor Nash heads a £4.3 million research hub at the University of Edinburgh that will be at the forefront of global efforts to combat the growing threat to health. The chief vet of Wales has confirmed that the death of 15 chickens on a farm in Conwy was caused by a less virulent strain of avian flu - H7N2 as opposed to H5N1. Two adults associated with the farm have shown flu symptoms and are being treated as a precaution...

Click here to access the full article.

May 24 2007

Nigeria: New Health Risk With Farmers Using Banned Bird Flu Vaccine

ALL AFRICA.COM

Commercial poultry farmers in Nigeria are vaccinating their chickens against a deadly strain of bird flu virus despite a government ban. Experts say they are increasing the risk of further contamination. "Vaccination that is not done properly has contributed to the spread of the infection," said Mohammed Saidu, head of animal health at Nigeria's World Bank-sponsored programme to combat the virus known as H5N1. He and other bird flu experts are concerned about reports that large-scale farmers around the commercial capital, Lagos, and in the north of the country have been buying the imported vaccines through local markets that are poorly regulated and frequently sell fake or defective products...

Click here to access the full article.

May 24 2007

Bird flu reports keep vets on toes

DAWN (Pakistan)

by Amin Ahmed

RAWALPINDI: The bird flu situation in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) is becoming serious as veterinary specialists have feared that the poultry farms in Tarlai and Sihala - the two other poultry producing areas - may also be affected by the H5N1 virus. There have been reports of the virus in poultry farms in Tarlai and Sihala but the poultry farmers have not yet reported to the reference laboratory in Islamabad or the Poultry Research Institute in Rawalpindi. A year ago, poultry farms in Chak Shahzad, Tarlai and Sihala were severely affected by the bird flu virus. It is obvious that poultry farms are feared to be affected following the outbreak of the disease in Chak Shahzad, experts say...

Click here to access the full article.

May 24 2007

Bird flu death sparks fear

GULF DAILY NEWS (Bahrain)

Yesterday, as Indonesia confirmed its 77th death and Pakistan reported a fresh outbreak among poultry. The WHO is looking into the suspected bird flu case in Vietnam following a series of new outbreaks on poultry farms, a WHO spokeswoman said. If confirmed it would be the first human infection in one-and-a-half years in Vietnam, one of the countries hardest hit by the virus, with 42 human fatalities between 2003 and November 2005. In Indonesia, a five-year-old girl is the latest victim of the disease, taking the country's death toll from the virus to 77, a health ministry official said. Indonesia is the country worst hit by the virus...

Click here to access the full article.

May 24 2007

Nigeria reports bird flu outbreak

Independant Online (South Africa)

Lagos - Health authorities reported on Wednesday an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in Nigeria's northern state of Zamfara, the official NAN news agency said. The virus was confirmed through tests on affected birds in Namaturu village and more than 200 birds had been culled to curtail the spread of the disease, said Aminu Abdulrazak from the state health ministry. The whole area had been disinfected and villagers had been advised to follow advice from doctors on the matter, he added...

Click here to access the full article.

May 21 2007

Bird flu 'huge challenge' in Bangladesh: FAO

TURKISH DAILY PRESS (Turkey)

ROME - Bangladesh needs to step up its fight against bird flu, which is posing a "huge challenge" in the densely populated country, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said Monday. "The bird flu situation in Bangladesh remains serious and the country will have to engage in a long-term strategic campaign against highly pathogenic avian influenza in order to get the spreading H5N1 virus under control," the Rome-based UN agency said in a communique. "Bangladesh has a real chance to get the virus under control, if it commits itself to a full-scale comprehensive national control campaign," said Joseph Domenech, the FAO's chief veterinary officer...

Click here to access the full article.

May 15 2007

Poor countries demand fair share of bird flu vaccines

REUTERS

by Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA - Developing countries led by Indonesia demanded a fair deal on Tuesday for providing samples of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus that drug companies use to make vaccines. A resolution, presented by 17 countries at the annual World Health Assembly, came as Indonesia said it had resumed sharing virus samples with the World Health Organisation (WHO) after a five-month hiatus. The United Nations agency, under growing pressure from countries hard-hit by the disease, is trying to come up with a new formula for sharing of samples and the resulting benefits...


Click here to access the full article.

May 12 2007

Bird flu rumours spoil West Bengal's poultry party

THE ECONOMIC TIMES (India)

by DEBASIS SARKAR

SILIGURI: Widespread panic over the possible outbreak of avian flu in Siliguri has left the Rs 800 crore poultry business in north Bengal in the lurch. Though not a single case of avian flu has been confirmed, rumours continue to pull down the market. The news of the death of some 2,500 chickens in a local farm near Siliguri in just two days spread across the whole of north Bengal, Sikkim and in some areas of the North East. The regional laboratory in Jalpaiguri has reported the case as a commonly occurring poultry disease called "New Castle" along with Gambaru virus infection. To confirm elimination of the possibility of avian flu, samples have been sent to the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal from where reports are yet to come...

Click here to access the full article.

May 10 2007

Nigeria: FG to Establish Bird Flu Research Centre

ALL AFRICA.COM

Federal government is proposing to establish an avian influenza research centre, Health Minister Eyitayo Lambo said Monday in Abuja. Lambo, who made this known at the opening of the first African International Symposium on Avian and Pandemic Influenza and Anti-virals, said the centre would collaborate with the global research institutions. He said the collaboration would involve the training of Nigerians on those technologies and strategies capable of improving care and support to needy bird flu patients...

Click here to access the full article.

May 2 2007

WHO chief hails Egypt's program in dealing with bird flu

PEOPLE'S DAILY ONLINE (China)

Visiting World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan Thursday hailed Egypt's program in dealing with bird flu and its successful efforts in combating polio. Chan made the remarks during a meeting with Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazef earlier in the day, said Cabinet spokesman Magdi Radi. Chan, who arrived here on Wednesday for a two-day visit, noted that the WHO will help Egypt locally produce poultry vaccines against bird flu, Radi said...

Click here to access the full article.

April 27 2007

Indonesia backs out on giving WHO flu samples

TAIPEI TIMES (Taiwan)

'WE DON'T CARE': In a country where more than a third of the world's total outbreaks have occurred, the government is still reluctant to cooperate. Indonesia has gone back on its pledge to resume sending bird flu samples to the World Health Organization (WHO), while upping the rhetoric in a standoff that has pitted poor countries against the rich. Health officials from the nation hardest hit by bird flu say it's unfair for WHO to simply hand over their H5N1 viruses to drug companies, arguing any vaccine produced from their specimens would likely be out of reach for many cash-strapped countries...

Click here to access the full article.

April 26 2007

Bird flu pandemic could kill seven million people: WHO

TEHRAN TIMES (Iran)

MANILA (AFP) - A global bird flu pandemic could infect one billion people and kill between two and seven million of them, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday. "The next pandemic may cause very high morbidity and mortality in a few weeks. It could cause one billion cases and two to seven million deaths," said Jean-Marc Olive, the organization's country representative for the Philippines. The estimates were derived from models based on previous flu epidemics, he told a forum organized by the Australian embassy...

Click here to access the full article.

April 25 2007

WHO leans towards pandemic vaccine stockpile for developing countries

TOPIX.NET

by Helen Branswell

The World Health Organization, vaccine manufacturers and donor countries appear to be working towards the creation of a stockpile of pandemic influenza vaccine for use by developing countries, a senior WHO official said Wednesday. "We would be wrong not to be developing stockpiles which can address a very crucial need at this point in time. And so we're doing whatever we can to make sure that this occurs," Dr. David Heymann, the WHO's senior representative for pandemic influenza, said from Geneva. Just how large a stockpile might be and how quickly it might come together remains to be worked out, Heymann said...

Click here to access the full article.

April 23 2007

Kenya exposed to bird flu risk by poultry importers

THE STANDARD (Kenya)

by Elizabeth Awuor

Importation of cheap poultry products from countries where the avian influenza has been reported poses a risk of introducing bird flu into Kenya, a workshop was told. Coast province Director of Veterinary Services, Dr George Makalo, said some traders still import poultry products from countries that the Government has already banned. "Perhaps some traders want to maximise their profits by buying products from countries where bird flu has been detected without realising the risks they are exposing the country to," said Makalo...

Click here to access the full article.

April 21 2007

Myanmar wins rare praise for bird flu action

KHALEEJ TIMES (United Arab Emirates)

YANGON - Down a dirt road in a northeastern Yangon suburb, a large barn stands empty but for white feathers and piles of chicken excrement that hint at its former occupants. The owners hide behind a locked red gate, shaking their heads and refusing to answer questions. But nearby residents here in Mayangone Township say these farmers lost everything when officials in protective clothing came and killed all their chickens. This is the site of Myanmar's first bird flu outbreak this year, and for once the secretive junta is winning praise from the international community for their response to the potential disaster...

Click here to access the full article.

April 20 2007

China lagging behind with bird flu samples

INDEPENDENT ONLINE (South Africa)

China is preparing to send updated virus samples from human bird flu cases to the World Health Organisation, state media reported on Friday, days after the WHO said it hadn't received any for a year. The Health Ministry "will send two recent samples of the virus and one from a Beijing patient who was infected in 2003," the China Daily newspaper said, citing a ministry official surnamed Ma. Five new human cases have been reported in China since Beijing last sent samples to the WHO in April and May of 2006. The government also disclosed last year that new tests on the body of a 24-year-old soldier who died in 2003 confirmed that he succumbed to the disease...

Click here to access the full article.

April 15 2007

FG debunks report of human avian influenza outbreak

VANGUARD (Nigeria)

by Chioma Obinna

The Federal Government has dismissed as false, reports in some national dailies (not Vanguard) of suspected human case of Avian Influenza (HPAIH5N1) popularly known as Bird flu in Lagos State, just as it has described statements credited to the President of Poultry Association of Nigeria, (PAN) as misleading and capable of creating doubts in the minds of Nigerians about the sincerity of government in executing programmes. Minister of Information, Mr Frank Nweke Jnr. who debunked the reports in a Press statement made available to Good Health Weekly reassured the public that there is no new human case of Avian Influenza (HPAI H5N1) in Lagos State or anywhere else in Nigeria as speculated in some sections of the Press...

Click here to access the full article.

April 15 2007

Study: Migratory birds not to blame for spread of avian flu

THE TIMES OF INDIA (India)

by Nitin Sethi

NEW DELHI: The evidence is finally out to disprove minister of state Kanti Lal Bhuria's statement in Parliament that migratory birds could be blamed for the spread of the virulent bird flu. Two research papers published in the journal 'Ibis' have concluded that there is no evidence to link the recent spread of the pathogenic avian influenza to migratory birds. The paper concludes that commercial activities, particularly those associated with poultry, are the major factors that have determined the global spread of the deadly virus...

Click here to access the full article.

April 11 2007

Bangladesh struggling to contain bird flu

INDEPENDENT ONLINE (South Africa)

Bird flu is spreading among poultry in Bangladesh despite persistent efforts by veterinary and health personnel to contain it, fisheries and livestock ministry officials said on Wednesday. "The avian virus has been detected in three more farms in southern Noakhali, northern Gaibandha and western Jessore districts," said a spokesperson of the ministry's livestock department, who declined to be named. Jessore and Gaibandha districts are close to the Indian states of West Bengal and Assam respectively, where bird flu broke out much earlier, officials said...

Click here to access the full article.

April 6 2007

Ministry Steps Up Efforts to Prevent Bird Flu Outbreak

ARAB NEWS (Saudi Arabia)

by Lulwa Shalhoub

The Ministry of Agriculture and Water has banned the import of all sorts of birds, eggs and fodder from countries that have reported an avian flu outbreak as part of a contingency plan to prevent the spread of the deadly disease in the Kingdom. People coming from infected countries are banned from dealing with poultry for a minimum period of 10 days on arrival in the Kingdom. The ministry is also making efforts to ensure wild birds do not enter poultry farms and fodder storages. Poultry farms are required to not rear multiple types of birds at single locations. The ministry is also aiming to hold awareness campaigns for farmers and consumers by informing them about the disease and ways to prevent it from spreading...

Click here to access the full article.

April 2 2007

Bird flu outbreaks subsiding: FAO

TURKISH PRESS (Turkey)

Rome - Bird flu is on the decline around the world, the United Nations food agency said on Monday, while warning that the potentially deadly disease is still spreading where containment is inadequate. "There have been fewer cases of the disease this year than last year at the same time, indicating that there is a reduction in overall viral load," said the Food and Agriculture Organisation's top veterinarian Joseph Domenech in a news release. Outbreaks were recorded in 17 countries as of March 15, 2007, Domenech said. Overall last year, a total of 53 countries had outbreaks of H5N1, which has killed at least 171 people worldwide since its appearance in 2003...

Click here to access the full article.

March 30 2007

Avian flu claims three lives in China, Indonesia

GULF TIMES (Qatar)

BEIJING: Indonesia announced two more deaths from H5N1 bird flu yesterday and China said a teenage boy had also died from the virus, which has now spread to more than 50 countries and raised fears of a pandemic. The Indonesian Health Ministry said a 14-year-old boy and a 28-year-old woman had died, bringing the country's confirmed human death toll from the H5N1 virus to 71, the highest in the world. Indonesia announced three deaths on Wednesday. The boy was from West Sumatra and died last Saturday, while the woman, from the capital, Jakarta, died on Wednesday. In China, the 16-year-old boy from Bengbu in the rural eastern province of Anhui died late on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency reported, citing a provincial health official...

Click here to access the full article.

March 30 2007

Bird flu pandemic inevitable: WHO

VIET NAM NEWS (Viet Nam)

Viet Nam has both suffered and been hailed for its fight against avian influenza in poultry and humans. However, even now when the country is reported outbreak-free, the threat is far from over. While the virus is circulating in the environment, the risk to humans remains. Nations currently share the concern that an influenza pandemic may be imminent. Nature has given us a strong and unprecedented warning and it would be foolish to ignore this, or let this concern fade over time. Outbreaks can be stamped out but bird flu virus probably persists for many years in the countries that have been struck. Wild birds, migratory birds are considered as natural hosts of the bird flu virus and it is therefore likely impossible to eliminate the disease. Additionally, many of the strains that spread to domestic poultry change to become highly pathogenic - some of these may infect other species, including man...

Click here to access the full article.

March 28 2007

EGYPT: Bird flu awareness and reporting measures are improving

IRIN NEWS (Kenya)

CAIRO - Bird flu awareness and reporting measures in Egypt are improving, and patient recovery rates are rising, health specialists say, because of better planning and co-operation between international bodies and the Egyptian government in tackling the virus. This is despite the fact that 29 people in Egypt have been infected by the virus since spring 2006, 13 of whom died. The latest cases of human infection of H5N1, the avian influenza virus, were reported on Monday when a six-year-old boy from Qena in the Nile Valley, and a five-year-old boy from Minya province, were tested positive for the virus and admitted to hospital...

Click here to access the full article.

March 24 2007

First H5N1 bird flu cases detected in Saudi Arabia

PEOPLE'S DAILY ONLINE (China)

Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Agriculture confirmed Friday the first outbreak of H5N1 bird flu virus among birds in the country, the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. After the deadly bird flu cases being detected among turkeys, parrots, peacocks and ostriches in eastern part of the country, a number of birds have been ordered to be culled, said SPA. In addition, the Saudi government has imposed a quarantine blocking the import of live birds into the country and banning the hunting of migrant birds to avoid further spread of the virus...

Click here to access the full article.

March 19 2007

Africa: Portable Lab Could Revolutionize Bird Flu Detection

ALL AFRICA.COM

Animal health experts from 15 nations are meeting in Vienna today to discuss new mobile rapid-detection technology that experts say could revolutionize the fight against bird flu and many other livestock diseases. Researchers, scientists and manufacturers will discuss the development and potential of portable devices to study samples and discover the cause of death in birds. The kit could even be adapted to detect the strain of bird flu, including H5N1 - the cause of death of millions of poultry and numerous human fatalities. Moreover, such systems could easily be adapted to send results to a main control centre, allowing a much faster response to an outbreak...

Click here to access the full article.

March 13 2007

Indonesia refuses to share bird flu samples with WHO without legally binding agreement

THE STAR ONLINE (Malaysia)

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Indonesia will not share bird flu samples with the World Health Organization without a legally binding agreement promising the virus won't be used to develop an expensive commercial vaccine, the health minister said Tuesday. Siti Fadilah Supari, digging her heels in following a weekslong standoff with the global body, said a letter of guarantee from WHO's director general Margaret Chan late last month was not good enough. "We will not share the virus before there is a Material Transfer Agreement," she told reporters, adding that she hoped one would be drafted during a bird flu meeting in Jakarta in late March between Asia Pacific health leaders and WHO...

Click here to access the full article.

March 11 2007

No birds, no business

KHALEEJ TIMES

by Joy Sengupta

DUBAI - Empty cages in the markets tell the whole story. Following reports on the occurrence of bird flu in various parts of the world and the recent ban imposed by the UAE on import of birds and poultry from around the globe, more than 200 bird sellers in Dubai and Sharjah are facing an uncertain future. While some have been forced to close down shops for a lack of business, others have resorted to options like selling aquariums. If the bird flu threat continues to prevail across the globe, businesses worth millions of dirhams will be affected in the UAE, particularly in Dubai and Sharjah, where the average daily earning of a bird seller usually ranges between Dh5,000 and Dh10,000, market sources say. Bird sellers are now left with no stocks as the UAE has imposed a ban on the import of birds from countries like Africa, Pakistan and India...

Click here to access the full article.

March 8 2007

US researchers reconstruct spread of bird flu from China

THE MANILA TIMES (Philippines)

WASHINGTON: US researchers have reconstructed the evolution of avian flu and its spread over the past decade from its first origins in southern China, according to a new study. The team from Irvine University in California combined genetic and geographic data for the H5N1 virus, identifying many of the migration routes through which the strains spread across Asia and then around the globe. Knowing how strains of the bird-flu virus can develop and migrate will help in fighting the spread of the disease, said the study published Monday in the March 6 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science...

Click here to access the full article.

March 3 2007

Bird flu experts urge halt to wild bird trade

REUTERS India

by Tan Ee Lyn

HONG KONG - Leading virologists urged governments on Saturday to curb the trade of wild birds as they can spread the H5N1 bird flu virus, which has made a comeback in many parts of the world in recent months. The warning comes as Hong Kong confirmed a scaly-breasted munia found dead in late February in the densely-populated district of Sham Shui Po had tested positive for the H5N1. It was the 13th wild bird to have been found dead with the virus in Hong Kong since the start of this year. "The munia is not a migratory bird. Again, it points to humans and the trade in movement of birds that are responsible for spreading this virus," said virologist Robert Webster from St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis...

Click here to access the full article.

March 1 2007

Bird flu drug probe after 18 teenage deaths in Japan

SYDNEY MORINING HERALD (Australia)

by Justin Norrie

JAPANESE health authorities are investigating a flu medicine that is also available in Australia after a teenager jumped 11 storeys to his death after taking the drug. It was the 18th juvenile fatality linked to Tamiflu in 17 months. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has asked the Japanese importer of Tamiflu, an anti-viral drug regarded as the most important shield against bird flu in humans, to collect information about the conditions of patients who take the drug. The 14-year-old boy's death follows a similar case two weeks ago, when a girl also 14, died after jumping from an apartment building at Gamagori, in central Japan. It also comes after a warning by the US Food and Drug Administration late last year about the dangers of giving children Tamiflu...

Click here to access the full article.

February 21 2007

Moscow Region authorities dismiss rumors of bird flu among humans

RIA NOVOSTI (Russia)

MOSCOW - Moscow Region health authorities dismissed Wednesday rumors of the first human avian flu case in the wake of an outbreak that hit poultry farms in the region last week. Several Internet sources reported Tuesday that a resident of Ramenskoye, near the Russian capital, who owned poultry contaminated with the deadly bird flu virus had been hospitalized with a high temperature. "He [the resident of the Ramenskoye district] has been admitted to the infectious diseases ward at a local hospital, but his diagnosis is rhinitis, or simply a common cold," a local health official said...

Click here to access the full article.

February 20 2007

Nigeria: FAO Warns More Effort Needed to Check Worsening Bird Flu Crisis

ALL AFRICA.COM (Africa)

At the Costain live animal market in Nigeria's main city of Lagos chickens, turkeys and geese are still crowded together in the portable coops they arrived in from upcountry. Teenage boys helping buyers kill, clean and cut up the birds still do so with knives and bare hands, unprotected by gloves or face masks. More than one year after Nigeria reported sub-Saharan Africa's first cases of the deadly H5N1 avian flu virus and one month after the illness claimed its first human life in the country, little has changed in the way birds are handled or slaughtered. But old habits need to change and control measures must be improved in markets and on farms if Nigeria is to the curb the worsening spread of the virus, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Tuesday...

Click here to access the full article.

February 20 2007

India heedless as avian flu spreads in Pak

BUSINESS STANDARD (India)

by Surinder Sud

Poultry experts feel that the threat of recurrence of the dreaded bird flu is not yet over though it is too late to take any preventive action now.
"The risk of bird flu outbreak could have been averted by vaccinating all the birds on the major routes followed by migratory birds in flying back. But such a measure now would not work as it takes 6 to 8 weeks for the immunity to develop after vaccination", said Poultry Federation of India (PFI) chief Shashi Kapur. "Now, we can only pray for the country to remain unaffected by this malady," he added...

Click here to access the full article.

February 20 2007

'World gripped by flu pandemic': lessons from 50 years ago

KHALEEJ TIMES (United Arab Emirates)

PARIS - "A major wave of influenza is approaching from the Far East," an article published almost 50 years ago in the British journal New Scientist began ominously. The experts, it said, were "keeping their lips sealed and their fingers crossed." But neither silence nor prayer could prevent the 20th century's second major flu pandemic from sweeping across the globe. By the spring of 1958, what came to be known as Asian flu had claimed two million lives and reminded scientists how little they really knew about one of Man’s most lethal, mutating predators. Even today, half a century later, there are lessons to be gleaned from that outbreak as the world warily eyes H5N1 bird flu, wondering if - or when - it will mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans...

Click here to access the full article.

February 19 2007

Islamabad zoo closed amid bird flu scare

DAWN (Pakistan)

By Amin Ahmed

ISLAMABAD: The capital's Marghazar Zoo has been closed for visitors amid bird flu scare. The decision has been taken as a precautionary measures to control the spread of the Avian Influenza H5N1 bird flu strain that is suspected to have killed a dozen ducks and pea-hens over the last week, zoo officials and veterinary experts told Dawn on Monday. Tests at referral laboratories in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi indicate the existence of the H5N1 virus in the zoo birds. However the results of the tests are yet to be received to confirm the virus. Informed sources told Dawn that last week ducks were found dead on a pond which raised concern of the zoo officials. The dead ducks were sent to the National Reference Laboratory on the instructions of veterinary experts...

Click here to access the full article.

February 17 2007

Indonesia to resume sending bird flu samples to WHO

CHANNEL NEWS ASIA (Singapore)

JAKARTA: Indonesia agreed to resume sharing its bird flu virus samples with the World Health Organization (WHO) Friday under condition that developing countries will have equal access to an affordable vaccine, officials from both sides said. "We agree to responsible sharing practices and we're going to do it soon," Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari told reporters. She said that a proposal would be drawn up that would be fair and guarantee access for any products resulting from the sharing of samples to other developing countries...

Click here to access the full article.

February 17 2007

Progress in producing vaccine against human bird flu: WHO

HINDUSTAN TIMES (India)

The United Nations health agency has reported "encouraging progress" in producing vaccine against human bird flu which, in worst case scenario, could mutate to cause pandemic with the potential of killing millions. But the World Health Organization (WHO) said the bad news is that the world does not have the capacity to meet potential global demand even as some independent experts said that the efficacy of the vaccine in humans is yet to be fully demonstrated...

Click here to access the full article.

February 14 2007

WHO cites more evidence of H5N1's bias toward young

CIDRAP NEWS (United States)

The World Health Organization's (WHO's) latest analysis of human H5N1 avian influenza cases adds to previous evidence that young people are more susceptible to the virus and more likely to die of it than older people. In examining 256 confirmed cases over 3 years, the WHO found that 89% of patients were younger than 40, and the case-fatality rate for patients older than 50 was 40%, versus 76% for 10 to 19 year-olds and 60% for all ages. The findings were reported in the Feb 9 issue of the WHO's Weekly Epidemiological Record. The agency said the reason for the skewed age distribution is unknown and does not appear to be entirely a result of the preponderance of young people in the affected countries...

Click here to access the full article.

February 12 2007

Bird flu is linked to global trade in poultry

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE (Europe)

by Elisabeth Rosenthal

ROME: Most of the scattered bird flu outbreaks so far this year probably can be traced to illegal or improper trade in poultry, scientists believe. This probably includes recent outbreaks in Nigeria and Egypt as well as the large outbreak on a turkey farm in England. Last winter, wild migrating birds were deemed the primary culprit in the bird flu infestations that hopscotched across Europe and Africa. Dead swans and ducks were found in many countries, including Austria, France and Italy. "Many of us at the outset underestimated the role of trade," said Samuel Jutzi, director of Animal Production and Health at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. "The virus is behaving rather differently than last year - it's rather enigmatic"...

Click here to access the full article.

February 5 2007

NIGERIA: More support on avian flu

ALERTNET (United Kingdom)

LAGOS - The World Health Organisation (WHO) has sent three specialists to Nigeria to support local efforts to identify the source of the country's first human case of avian influenza. The specialists will remain in Nigeria for up to two weeks, assisting in laboratory analysis and the detection of potential sources of avian flu in the environment, said Dick Thompson, a spokesman for WHO in Geneva. "During an outbreak of a new disease very often certain specialties are overwhelmed or they don't have the familiarity at hand so we send experts to support the work that is going on, but more importantly train people in a new skill," Thompson told IRIN on Monday...

Click here to access the full article.

February 2 2007

Bird flu sparks hunt for backyard coops

THE MANILA TIMES (Philippines)

Officials started on Thursday a door-to-door check for poultry in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, as the government mulled declaring a national disaster after the country suffered its highest bird-flu death toll. National Development Planning Minister Paskah Suzetta said on Wednesday that bird flu has killed six people so far this year. Last year, it killed 63 persons. Declaring the outbreak a national disaster would allow for nationally-coordinated measures and greater funding, Suzetta said...

Click here to access the full article.

January 18 2007

Indonesia issues stringent bird flu prevention measures

INDIA E-NEWS (India)

In an attempt to stop a sudden spike in bird flu deaths, Indonesia on Thursday expanded a ban on backyard poultry farms in residential areas to nine provinces. The ban, which started earlier this week for the capital Jakarta and West Java and Banten provinces, now extends across Java, the world's most densely populated island, and beyond, according to government officials. Last week, four people died of bird flu after the country had gone nearly six weeks without a fatality, and two more people were being treated for the virus…

Click here to access the full article.

January 18 2007

Egypt reports 19th human case of deadly bird flu

PRAVDA (Egypt)

Bird flu has infected another Egyptian, bringing to 19 the number of cases afflicted with the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus, according to reports Thursday in Egyptian media. The reports, citing health authorities, said that a housewife from Beni Suef, about 90 kilometers (60 miles) south of Cairo, tested positive for the avian flu strain and was admitted to hospital for treatment. The Middle East News Agency did not say how the woman contracted the virus. Most people get it through contact with infected birds which they raise at home, or while slaughtering or cleaning chicken…


Click here to access the full article.

January 18 2007

Bird flu-hit farmers still await compensation

HINDUSTAN TIMES (India)

by Yogesh Joshi

Many Poultry farmers, who suffered heavy economic losses during the outbreak of Bird flu last year, have yet to receive compensation amount to be given to them under state government's financial package. While the government has allotted Rs 50 crore out of Rs 80 crore package, 60 per cent of the amount, which is almost Rs 30 crore, has gone to contractors, who also suffered losses by providing working capital to poultry farmers. However, due to the government's move to clear contractor's amount first under the package, as many as 35,000 farmers are away from their share in the package. The delay in reaching money to the farmers has added their woes at a time when poultry industry is facing another crisis of stiff hike in the prices of Maize, the main feed of birds…

Click here to access the full article.

January 17 2007

Nigeria pledges action against bird flu

KHALEEJ TIMES (United Arab Emirates)

GUANGZHOU, China - Nigeria is taking the threat of bird flu seriously and will take action to prevent its spread, acknowledging that failure to do so will hurt its economy, a leading official said. The country last week culled more than 20,000 chickens at a northwestern farm where bird flu had been detected. Workers fumigated the area. Nigeria first discovered the disease in poultry early last year in a northern state. But despite culling and quarantine, it quickly spread to many parts of the country…

Click here to access the full article.

January 15 2007

Outbreaks prompt Asia to be on high alert for bird flu

MANILA TIMES (Philippines)

HANOI: Four bird-flu deaths in Indonesia and a spate of new poultry outbreaks in Vietnam and elsewhere in Asia are signs the virus could make a resurgence this northern winter. While most Asian countries are better prepared than they were a year ago to prevent or contain the spread of avian influenza, epidemiologists say there is no room for complacency about the virus that remains widespread in the region. "The concern is still there," said Hans Troedsson, head of the World Health Organization in Vietnam, where after a one-year hiatus bird flu has spread across dozens of farms in six southern provinces in recent weeks…

Click here to access the full article.

January 13 2007

Bird-flu outbreak sparks farm checks

JAPAN TIMES (Japan)

MIYAZAKI - The farm ministry ordered nationwide checks of poultry farms Friday after about 750 chickens died earlier this week at a farm in the town of Kiyotake, Miyazaki Prefecture. The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry and the Miyazaki Prefectural Government said late Thursday night that a highly pathogenic bird flu is suspected as the cause of the deaths. This is the first domestic bird-flu outbreak since June 2005, when the H5N2 strain spread to 40 farms in Ibaraki Prefecture, forcing 5.7 million chickens to be culled, the agriculture ministry said…

Click here to access the full article.

January 6 2007

HK can handle threat of bird flu, says Chan

THE STANDARD (China)

by Chester Yung

In Geneva, the new head of the World Health Organization Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun Friday expressed confidence that Hong Kong's health officials can cope with bird flu, the key concern of global health. But in Causeway Bay, where a dead wild bird tested positive for the H5 influenza virus earlier this week, residents were concerned about the possible spread of the virus. Chan, Hong Kong's former health director who was named WHO director-general last November, said in Geneva that bird flu was the key concern in global health…

Click here to access the full article.

December 17 2006

Prices soar as poultry farmers chicken out

TIMES OF INDIA (India)

HYDERABAD: It's festival time once again with Christmas and New Year round the corner. But if you want to celebrate this season by chewing on chicken legs, then chew on this: Chicken prices are going up and this northward movement is likely to go on till February. Reason: Besides the increased festival demand, supplies have dwindled because of the bird flu scare a few months ago. That scare had led to heavy losses for the poultry industry. The effect of this is now being felt by the consumer. The retail price of dressed chicken in the market in Hyderabad is as much as Rs 74 to Rs 78 per kg…

Click here to access the full article.

December 6 2006

Bird flu experts meet to fight virus, complacency

ALERTNET (United Kingdom)

by Alistair Thomson

BAMAKO - Experts fighting bird flu around the world met on Wednesday to replenish their war chest and plot the next stage of their campaign to control the disease and avert a devastating human flu pandemic. The three-day meeting in Mali, the fourth global bird flu summit since late last year, includes a donor conference on Friday seeking an extra $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion over 2-3 years to add to $1.9 billion pledged in Beijing last January. But the meeting began with a warning that complacency threatened to undermine international efforts against bird flu…

Click here to access the full article.

December 2 2006

China promises speedy bird flu sample sharing

REUTERS INDIA

HONG KONG - China has promised the new head of the World Health Organisation that it will share bird flu samples more quickly, after worries Chinese secrecy was hampering understanding of the virus, Hong Kong papers said on Saturday. Chinese bird flu expert Margaret Chan, who was elected in November as head of the WHO, has just finished a four-day visit to China where she met President Hu Jintao as well as Premier Wen Jiabao and Health Minister Gao Qiang. "I can frankly tell you President Hu, Premier Wen and the Ministry of Health all understand the importance of making speedy announcements," the Standard quoted Chan as saying…

Click here to access the full article.

November 29 2006

Korea kills animals to fight bird flu

BANGKOK TIMES (Thailand)

A second outbreak of the virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu at another poultry farm has been confirmed by South Korean authorities; the farm is just 3 km from the first case in North Cholla province in the country's southwest. According to the agriculture ministry, as many as 600 chickens have died but no people in or around both infected farms appear to have been infected; 6,000 chickens died in the first outbreak. The officials say test results have shown that the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu was the culprit and strict quarantine measures have been imposed around the area…


Click here to access the full article.

November 27 2006

N. Korea steps up preventive measures against bird flu: KCNA

YONHAP NEWS (Korea)

SEOUL - Following an outbreak of bird flu in South Korea, North Koreas is toughening its own preventive measures against the deadly animal epidemic, the North's media reported on Monday. Bird flu, also known as avian influenza, broke out last week in South Korea's southern city of Iksan, killing thousands of chickens, the first outbreak in the country in four years. The South Korean government confirmed later the deaths had been caused by a highly virulent strain of the virus which can affect human beings…

Click here to access the full article.

November 25 2006

Nigerian poultry farmers urged to know more about bird flu

PEOPLE'S DAILY ONLINE (China)

Nigerian poultry farmers are urged to learn knowledge on how to curtail the spread of bird flu, the state-run News Agency of Nigeria reported on Friday. Permanent Secretary of the Kano State Ministry of Agriculture Joseph Maigari was quoted as saying that "it is necessary to educate poultry farmers on how to prevent the spread of the virus." At a sensitization workshop for poultry owners and workers held on Friday in Kano, a leading commercial city in north Nigeria, Maigari said the workshop was aimed at forestalling a recurrence of the epidemic which led to the culling of many birds and made farmers suffer huge losses early this year…

Click here to access the full article.

November 23 2006

Africa must join fight against bird flu-WHO

ALERTNET

by Sarah McGregor

JOHANNESBURG - Africa must find resources to back international efforts to stop the spread of bird flu and help prevent a human pandemic, the World Health Organisation said on Thursday, as Ivory Coast declared a new outbreak. African nations cannot afford to ignore the threat of H5N1 bird flu, which can kill people, and should make early investments to detect and wipe out the virus in poultry and wild birds, Alan Hay, director of the WHO Influenza Centre told Reuters. "The danger is that you might have something where it could be smouldering and then all of a sudden it shows up in the human population," Hay said on the sidelines of the Roche Diagnostics Forum, which focuses in healthcare in Africa, in Johannesburg. "We know it's a difficult task and asking a lot, but surveillance (is more cost effective) than dealing with a pandemic"…

Click here to access the full article.

November 23 2006

Bird flu hard to detect until too late

GULF TIMES (Qatar)

WASHINGTON: Quick tests that can tell if patients have influenza do not detect bird flu, so despite heroic efforts, they can die before anyone knows what killed them, doctors reported yesterday. The H5N1 bird flu virus also causes a range of symptoms in people, making it that much harder to diagnose, experts said in two separate reports from Indonesia and Turkey. In Turkey, repeated testing failed to diagnose H5N1 avian influenza in eight patients, one team of doctors reported in the New England Journal of Medicine…

Click here to access the full article.

November 19 2006

World may have averted bird flu pandemic: expert

KHALEEJ TIMES (United Arab Emirates)

SYDNEY - The world may have already averted a bird flu pandemic by widespread chicken culls and the isolation of infected humans, Australia’s chief medical officer said in a report released Sunday. But if a new flu virus did begin spreading rapidly among humans all the world's preparations might be shown to be insufficient, John Horvath wrote in the Medical Journal of Australia. "It may be that the world has already averted an influenza pandemic by actions it has taken in response to H5N1, such as extensive culling of poultry and isolation of infected humans," he said…

Click here to access the full article.

November 16 2006

More action needed in fight against bird flu in Asia-Pacific, APEC ministers

PEOPLE’S DAILY ONLINE (China)

An APEC ministerial meeting on Thursday called for further action in fight against bird flu as there is still potential threat of H5N1 virus to mutate into a pandemic strain in the Asia-Pacific region as well as the world. At the 18th Ministerial Meeting of the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the ministers and representatives noted in a statement that "the potential for the highly pathogenic avian influenza/H5N1 virus to mutate into a pandemic strain remains a continued threat to the APEC region and the world." Therefore, they stressed the continuing need for vigilance and action to prevent the disease from outbreak…

Click here to access the full article.

November 9 2006

New bird flu strain emerges

THE HINDU (India)

IN A move that is hardly surprising, China has denied the emergence of a new bird flu strain - Fujian-like - that was reported very recently in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The new strain, first identified in March last year by researchers working at the University of Hong Kong and St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, Tennessee, U.S., has been found mainly in birds and in a few cases in humans as well. The strain first found in Fujian province in China, and hence named Fujian-like, has been found to have spread to six other provinces in southern China from where samples were collected. Incidentally, it has already crossed borders and is found in Hong Kong, Laos, Malaysia and Thailand…

Click here to access the full article.

November 8 2006

Nigeria govt warns against bird flu vaccinating

AFROL NEWS (Africa)

In a somewhat surprising move, the Nigerian government asked poultry farmers and veterinary doctors to desist from vaccinating poultry against the avian influenza better known as "bird flu". Nigeria's poultry industry has over 140 million domestic birds and the sector contributes 9 percent to the country's Gross Domestic Product. In a statement, Nigeria's presidential committee tasked with preventing and managing the avian influenza acknowledged receiving reports that some poultry farmers and veterinary doctors have been vaccinating poultry against the disease, which broke out in the country in February this year. The committee warned that vaccination of poultry was against the policy of Nigeria's federal government. Believing that such acts were capable of jeopardising the health of poultries and consumers of poultry products, the Nigerian government asked for the vaccination of poultry to stop…

Click here to access the full article.

October 27 2006

Chinese scientists report bird flu in sparrows

CHINA POST (China)

Chinese scientists said they had found the H5N1 bird flu virus in sparrows two years ago, the first time it has been detected in non-migratory birds in China, Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday. Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in the central province of Hubei, found the virus in sparrows' excrement following an outbreak of bird flu in a county in neighboring Henan province. Chinese officials have in the past blamed outbreaks of bird flu in the country on migratory birds, but the findings indicate that the virus could also be among local birds common in urban areas…

Click here to access the full article.

October 24 2006

Russia tests bird flu vaccine

RIAN (Russia)

MOSCOW - Clinical tests of a bird flu vaccine, developed by the Russian Health Ministry's state-owned Science and Production Association Mikrogen in conjunction with the Academy of Medical Sciences, have been conducted in the last three months. The tests involved 240 healthy volunteers, separated into two groups numbering 120 men and women each. All of them received insurance policies and benefits in line with international standards. Mikrogen general director Dr. Anton Katlinsky said the tests had produced encouraging results. "We used the World Health Organization's recommendations in our work, as well as our own unique methods and patented technologies," Professor Katlinsky said…

Click here to access the full article.

October 24 2006

Global vigilance needed to counter bird flu: UN coordinator

PEOPLE'S DAILY ONLINE (China)

While the deadly bird flu virus had not spread as widely as feared in Africa, vigilance was still needed across the world to counter its advance and deal with its impact on humans, a senior UN official said on Monday. "The disease didn't spread quite so profoundly in Africa as we had expected it might, but still the number of viral outbreaks in 2006 were much greater than any previous year," said Dr. David Nabarro, the Senior United Nations Systems Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza at a press briefing at the UN headquarters in New York. "The situation with regard to avian influenza in the world is that in 2006 we did see more than 30 countries reporting outbreaks," he said…

Click here to access the full article.

October 22 2006

Indonesia authorities say fewer regions are avian flu endemic

GULF TIMES (Qatar)

JAKARTA: The number of Indonesian provinces where bird flu is endemic has nearly halved in the last six months, although all areas on heavily populated Java island remain affected, a health official said yesterday. Indonesia has recorded 55 human deaths from bird flu, the world's highest number, and there has been no sign of a slowdown with the country now one of the frontlines in the battle against the virus. "There were 30 provinces where bird flu has been declared endemic in fowl. In the last six months 14 of these provinces have reported no new cases," Bayu Krisnamurthi, head of the national committee on Avian Influenza Control and Pandemic Influenza Preparedness, said by telephone…

Click here to access the full article.

October 21 2006

Bird flu-hit Indonesia to ban city backyard poultry

THANHNIEN NEWS (Vietnam)

Indonesia has become a frontline in the battle against the virus that has killed 55 people in the sprawling country, where millions of chickens roam freely in urban residential areas. Despite the rising human death toll, the government has resisted mass culling of birds, citing the expense and impracticality in the developing country of 220 million people, where the bird flu threat is not seen as a high priority by many. "There are laws banning poultry in cities in Thailand and Hong Kong. We will also carry that out soon," Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari told reporters without giving a timeline…

Click here to access the full article.

October 19 2006

INTERVIEW-OIE chief urges world bird flu compensation fund

REUTERS

by David Evans

PARIS - The head of the World Animal Health body OIE said on Thursday an international fund to compensate farmers in poor countries for bird flu culls was urgently needed to ensure reporting of the deadly virus. Officials from the OIE, World Bank, European Commission and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) met in Paris this week with the aim of setting up a fund by early next year. "We'd like to convince the international financial institutions to have a world fund reserved for animal health emergencies," OIE Director General Bernard Vallat said…

Click here to access the full article.

October 17 2006

Egypt minister warns of winter bird flu upsurge

KHALEEJ TIMES (United Arab Emirates)

CAIRO - Egyptian Health Minister Hatem Al Gabali said on Tuesday he feared a fresh spate of human bird flu cases in the coming weeks. "Bird flu is still present and we will witness new cases this winter. We just hope they won't be fatal," he told parliament. "The population still refrains from informing the authorities when poultry is infected, especially in domestic rearings," he added…

Click here to access the full article.

October 14 2006

Research: "Prime and Boost" to fight bird flu

CHINA VIEW (China)

BEIJING, Oct. 14 (Xinhuanet) - Scientists from the University of Rochester in the United States are suggesting what they call the "Prime and Boost" method may be the best way to combat a bird flu pandemic. Current research points to a vaccination program that would require each human having two shots. The problem is full protection would arrive too late. Rochester researchers say protection might be stronger if the first shot is given before a pandemic begins. The present strategy is based on waiting for a pandemic to start to identify the mutated virus. The next step would take several months to create a new vaccine, then several more months would pass before its available to large numbers of people. Finally, most people would likely need two shots before they had full protection…

Click here to access the full article.

September 22 2006

WHO takes bird flu as top health danger

PEOPLE'S DAILY ONLINE (China)

Avian influenza remains the No. 1 danger for global public health, said Richard Nesbit, World Health Organization's Acting Regional Director for the Western Pacific, on Friday. He made the remarks at the conclusion of WHO's Western Pacific Region meeting held in Auckland, New Zealand. The WHO (World Health Organization) 57th annual meeting calls on its member countries to step up their defenses against emerging diseases, including bird flu, and to devote more resources to counter the growing threat from noncommunicable diseases…

Click here to access the full article.

September 21 2006

Bangladesh takes bird flu outbreak seriously

THE NEW NATION (Bangladesh)

A two-day workshop here on Avian and Human Influenza has developed the framework for a National Communication Strategy and Action Plan for prevention of the disease in Bangladesh. "The government takes the threat of 'bird flu' outbreak very seriously as it has been detected in India and Myanmar. Bangladesh remains free of the disease and this is how we would like to keep it," said Kamrul Islam, the Secretary-in-Charge of the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, in his opening remarks at the workshop that concluded Tuesday…

Click here to access the full article.

September 17 2006

Bird flu poses 'real and substantial' economic threat: WBank

TURKISH PRESS (Turkey)

A feared bird flu pandemic poses a "real and substantial" financial threat that could wipe as much as two trillion dollars off the value of the global economy, a World Bank expert warned Sunday. A severe avian influenza outbreak among humans could lop more than three percent from world gross domestic product because of its impact on trade and economic activity, said Jim Adams, head of a Bank taskforce on bird flu. That scenario assumes that one percent of the population, or about 70 million people, would die during the pandemic, according to Bank figures…

Click here to access the full article.

September 17 2006

Thai crisis 'may have increased bird flu'

FINANCIAL TIMES (United Kingdom)

by Shawn Donnan

Thailand's continuing political crisis may have contributed to a resurgence of bird flu in the country, according to the United Nations official co-ordinating the global fight against the disease. Both Thailand and Vietnam have been praised for their stringent efforts to fight the H5N1 virus in poultry and until July neither had reported a single human case this year, even as the virus has in the past nine months killed 37 people in nearby Indonesia. Authorities in Thailand, however, have since July reported two human fatalities from the virus, while Vietnam last month reported its first outbreaks in poultry this year…

Click here to access the full article.

September 15 2006

Vaccination, biosecurity holes leave RI at risk of bird flu

THE JAKARTA POST (Indonesia)

by Abdul Khalik

Bird flu will continue to move through the country's poultry flocks because of shortfalls in the vaccination and biosecurity measures applied here, new research reveals. Santoso Soeroso, the director of Sulianti Saroso Hospital, Indonesia's main treatment center for bird flu, said the improper vaccination of chickens and ducks may be helping to spread the virus. "It has become a silent epidemic. People think they have already vaccinated their poultry, they think they have stopped the virus from spreading. In fact, the virus continues to attack (poultry) because the vaccination is improper," he told participants in an Australia-Indonesia science and technology symposium here Wednesday…

Click here to access the full article.

September 12 2006

Southern Vietnam to check passenger temperature to prevent bird flu

PEOPLE'S DAILY ONLINE (China)

Vietnam's southern Ho Chi Minh City has assigned its International Quarantine Center and the Tan Son Nhat International Airport to check body temperature of international arrivals to the locality amid recent bird flu outbreaks in some countries, local media reported Tuesday. Remote temperature-measuring machines using infra-red rays and specialized thermometers are installed, ready to operate around the clock, newspaper Agriculture said. Those who have temperature of over 38 Celsius degrees will be invited to enter isolation rooms for bird flu diagnosis…

Click here to access the full article.

September 10 2006

U.S.CDC regrets delay in transfer of flu virus samples, import procedures now in place

PEOPLE'S DAILY ONLINE (China)

The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regrets the recent delays in the transfer of avian influenza virus samples from China's Ministry of Agriculture to CDC, according to a press statement released on Saturday by the U.S. embassy in China. The press release said that following communications over the past 24 hours, import procedures for samples are now in place and the U.S. CDC looks forward to receiving the viruses…

Click here to access the full article.

September 14 2006

WHO confirms 60th bird flu case in Indonesia, urges sequence sharing

ANTARA NEWS (Indonesia)

Jakarta - The World Health Organization on Wednesday confirmed the 60th case of human infection with the H5N1 strain of bird flu after a 6-year-old girl was tested positive of having the virus. In a statement, the WHO said the girl from Bekasi in West Java Province developed symptoms on Aug. 6 and was hospitalized on Aug. 11…The critics say Indonesia has not done enough to control the spread of the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus and infections among hundreds of millions of backyard poultry…

Click here to access the full article.

September 9 2006

Alert raised on migratory bird 'invasion'

SUN STAR (Philippines)

by Jenny Catan-tilos

The Provincial Veterinary Office alerted the public and private sectors on the expected arrival in Negros Oriental of hundreds of migratory birds fleeing the colder climate in several countries in the northern Asian hemisphere like Japan, China, Korea, Russia, and Siberia with the start of the winter months in September. Provincial Veterinarian Antonio Mutia issued the alert amid the continuing spread of the bird-flu that has already claimed 141 lives and infected 241 people in Azerbaijan, China, Cambodia, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam as of August 23, 2006…

Click here to access the full article.

September 7 2006

Health Ministry asks for strengthened fight against bird flu in humans

VietNamNet Bridge (Vietnam)

The Ministry of Public Health on Sept. 6 asked healthcare services and Pasteur Institutes nationwide to cooperate with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to strengthen the fight against avian influenza and avian influenza infection in humans. Deputy Public Health Minister Trinh Quan Huan said that as avian influenza and influenza A infection in humans is developing and becoming more complex in regional countries, an epidemic is becoming more likely in Vietnam. At present, al though an epidemic has not yet broken out, blood specimens from ducks in Tan Trieu market in Ha Noi's outlying district of Thanh Tri and in some households in the Mekong delta province of Ben Tre have tested positive to H5, the Deputy Minister added…

Click here to access the full article.

September 6 2006

Myanmar says free of bird flu

ASIA NEWS NETWORK

Military-run Myanmar has declared itself free of bird flu after months without a new reported outbreak, state media said on Wednesday (Sept 6). "Having controlled the spread of the epidemic by culling chickens and quail... it was confirmed that no virus was in the nation," the New Light of Myanmar newspaper said, adding the government Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department declared Myanmar bird flu free on Monday (Sept 4). Myanmar is among the countries often accused by international experts of lacking openness in its monitoring for bird flu…

Click here to access the full article.

September 4 2006

Thailand tightens up bird flu monitoring

CHINA VIEW (China)

BANGKOK (Xinhua) - Thailand's Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives has stepped up its measures to control bird flu as the main migratory season for wild fowl is coming, Thai Vice Minister Charal Trinvuthipong said on Monday. Chairing a meeting of agencies responsible for bird flu control, Charal, director of the government's command center on avian influenza, said efficiency in bird flu prevention must be fine-tuned as the season is approaching for migratory birds, which might carry the H5N1 virus to pass through Thailand. He noted that it has been discovered that local residents in several areas have been reluctant to disclose, or even covered up information about poultry which died of unidentified causes…

Click here to access the full article.

September 1 2006

Indonesia says targets $100 mln for bird flu fight

REUTERS ALERT NET

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia hopes to secure about $100 million to fight bird flu next year, the vice president said on Friday, after criticism the country is not doing enough to control the disease. Indonesia has the world's highest death toll from bird flu and scientists and even the World Bank have called on the government to step up the fight to control a disease that is endemic in almost all provinces. Experts said public ignorance, along with official ineptitude and lack of money, are hampering efforts to stamp out the disease in the densely populated country of 220 million people…

Click here to access the full article.

August 5 2006

Test results negative in suspected bird flu patients

JAKARTA POST

by Tb. Arie Rukmantara, Apriadi Gunawan

Preliminary laboratory tests of six suspected bird flu cases in North Sumatra were negative for the virus, Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said Thursday. "The tests came back negative. We didn't find H5N1 in their specimens," she said of results from three government-accredited laboratories in Jakarta. "They have common influenza." She also said the government would now rely on the local laboratories for H5N1 testing, instead of the current practice of sending samples to a WHO-sanctioned facility overseas…

Click here to access the full article.

August 4 2006

Thai Bird Flu Case Suggests Under-Reporting in Fowl (Update2)

BLOOMBERG.COM

A 17-year-old man who died of bird flu in Thailand last week, the country's first case this year, suggests the virus is being under-reported in poultry, the influenza team at the European Centre for Disease Surveillance and Control said. The youth from a northern province was hospitalized on July 18 suffering fever, cough and headache and died six days later, the Thai Bureau of General Communicable Diseases said in a July 26 report. A week before his symptoms appeared he buried 10 dead chickens, touching the carcasses with his bare hands. His phlegm tested positive for the H5N1 avian flu strain. The case `"could be an example of the phenomenon of a sentinel human already seen in other countries, where it is only the severe illness or death of a person from H5N1 that triggers detection or reporting of H5N1 in poultry,'' the team in Stockholm said in a report. `"This suggests under-detection or under-reporting of poultry deaths…''

Click here to access the full article.

August 4 2006

Bird flu data now open to all

JAKARTA POST

by Tb. Arie Rukmantara

Bowing to international pressure, Indonesia has said foreign scientists can have full access to the country's data on bird flu, the infectious disease that has claimed 43 lives here. The move is expected to help international scientists understand how the H5N1 bird flu virus works. Researchers are especially interested in the limited human-to-human transmission of the virus that happened in May in North Sumatra in the world's largest cluster of infections. Scientists fear bird flu could become more easily transmissible among humans, sparking a deadly global pandemic…

Click here to access the full article.

August 3 2006

Avian influence a menace: Health Official

VIETNAM NET

"The avian influenza pandemic is encircling Vietnam," stated Deputy Health Minister Trinh Quan Huan on Wednesday, August 2. If the disease returns to Vietnam from regional countries, H5N1 may ‘meet’ and combine with type B flu virus, which is widespread in Vietnam. If such an event occurs, there could be a great pandemic among humans in Vietnam, Mr Huan said. According to the Deputy Minister, Vietnam is surrounded by countries with bird flu like Laos, Cambodia, China and Thailand, where many provinces have infected fowl and hundreds of people under surveillance. This situation is threatening Vietnam and there is serious risk of a pandemic of bird flu this winter…

Click here to access the full article.

August 3 2006

China's latest bird flu patient discharged from hospital

PEOPLE'S DAILY ONLINE

China's latest bird flu patient was discharged from hospital Wednesday in Guangdong Province, local health authorities said. After being treated in the Donghu Hospital for 50 days, the patient, surnamed Jiang, 31, a truck driver from Shenzhen, had recovered sufficiently to leave, the Shenzhen municipal health department said. On June 15, the Ministry of Health confirmed that Jiang had contracted the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, bringing China's total human infections to 19…

Click here to access the full article.

August 3 2006

Girl, 9, dies; bird flu outbreak feared

BANGKOK POST

A nine-year-old girl has died with symptoms similar to H5N1 avian flu, although health authorities said it would take another day to determine whether she was a victim of the H5N1 virus. Geowthip Chiangin died in a district hospital in Lop Buri province, 120km north of Bangkok, after suffering a high fever and pneumonia since Sunday. Lop Buri's chief health official Pranor Khamthieng said the girl had initially tested negative for the H5N1 virus but samples had been sent to Bangkok for a more thorough investigation into whether she had died of bird flu…

Click here to access the full article.

August 1 2006

Business urges bird flu education

BANGKOK POST

The government should speed up giving small farmers proper knowledge and understanding of how to prevent a spread of the avian influenza so that the new outbreak of the disease could be curbed efficiently, according to an industry executive. Panya Chotithewan, Chairman of Saha Farm Co., Thailand's leading entrepreneur of poultry products, said on Tuesday that a detection of the new round of bird flu outbreak had rather had a psychological effect on trading partners. He said the company had informed a trading partner in Japan that the avian flu was detected in farms of small farmers and it had not affected chicken exporters who have good preventive measures…

Click here to access the full article.

July 31 2006

Malaysia on alert for avian flu

NEW STRAITS TIMES

by Annie Freeda Cruez

Malaysia is on alert for avian flu following recent outbreaks in Indonesia and Thailand. Veterinary Services acting Director-General, Datuk Dr Mustapa Abdul Jalil, said the nation had not let its guard down after the last round of cases in both neighbouring countries. "The nation is still on high alert. Our concentration now is on the Malaysia-Thailand border," he told the New Straits Times. He said the department was concerned with latest developments in Thailand where 80 patients from 19 provinces were being monitored for bird flu infection…

Click here to access the full article.

July 29 2006

Asia pledges joint action to fight bird flu Agencies

GULF NEWS

New Delhi/Bangkok: Bird flu-hit Asian countries vowed on Friday to unite to fight the virus and said they recognised the need to better coordinate efforts between health and farm agencies at national level. Ministers and senior officials from 11 Asian countries including China, Indonesia and Thailand agreed to share knowledge of avian influenza, including investigation of cases and outbreaks, which have killed 134 people since 2003…

Click here to access the full article.

July 29 2006

WHO says lack of coordination hitting bird flu fight

TURKISH DAILY NEWS

Lack of cooperation between health and farm officials in developing countries is hampering the fight against bird flu, the World Health Organisation said on Friday. Ministers and senior officials from 11 Asian countries, including China, Indonesia and Thailand are meeting in New Delhi to agree on a blueprint to boost efforts between agencies and between nations to curb the spread of the H5N1 virus which has killed at least 133 people since 2003. WHO officials say one major problem lay in the differing focus of health and farm or animal husbandry departments…

Click here to access the full article.

July 26 2006

Low-dose Glaxo bird flu vaccine seen ready in 2007

REUTERS

by Ben Hirschler

LONDON (Reuters) - A bird flu vaccine for humans that uses only a very low dose of active ingredient has proved effective in clinical tests and could be mass produced in 2007, its maker GlaxoSmithKline Plc said on Wednesday. Europe's biggest pharmaceuticals group said it was on track to start manufacturing by the end of 2006 and could make hundreds of millions of doses next year, assuming the product is approved by regulators. It will probably cost around 4 pounds ($7.40) - the same as a conventional flu shot - and Glaxo is talking to groups like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria about funding it in poor countries…

Click here to access the full article.

July 20 2006

In the bird-flu fight, Indonesia falls behind

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE

by Donald G. McNeil Jr.

Indonesia is poised to surpass Vietnam as the country hardest hit by avian flu. And while Vietnam has not had a single human case or poultry outbreak this year, public health officials and experts say the situation in Indonesia is likely to get worse. Indonesia received word from a Hong Kong laboratory that a 44-year- old man who died last week near Jakarta had tested positive for the H5N1 virus, the Indonesian Health Ministry said Thursday. That brought number of confirmed bird flu deaths in Indonesia to 42 since the first human case was confirmed a year ago, equal to the toll in Vietnam. The flu is ubiquitous in thousands of Indonesian backyard flocks, and appears to be killing more birds every month, increasing the likelihood of human cases…

Click here to access the full article.

June 15 2006

Alert on silent H5N1 carriers

THE STANDARD

by Chester Yung

Health chief York Chow Yat-ngok has raised the specter of "a silent infection among poultry" in the wake of a suspected human bird-flu case just across the Hong Kong border. Chow's fears were raised by a report that a truck driver surnamed Jiang, 31, was suspected of having contracted the deadly H5N1 virus in Shenzhen… Chow, the secretary for health, welfare and food, said Wednesday Jiang had no specific contact with poultry though he had eaten chicken bought by his wife from a market in the Longgang district. "His risk was not much higher than that of any citizen in Shenzhen," he said…

Click here to access the full article.

June 13 2006

China steps up bird flu controls

PEOPLE'S DAILY ONLINE

China is strengthening prevention and control of bird flu although no new human cases have been confirmed for more than a month, a health official said Monday. "We are still keeping a close eye on bird flu and have strengthened scientific research and nationwide surveillance," said Ministry of Health spokesman Mao Qun'an. So far, the virus outside of the human infections had shown no sign of mutation, and human-to-human transmission was still unproved in clinical studies, he said.
China had enhanced research in human vaccines and drugs as well, he added…

Click here to access the full article.

June 12 2006

Govt told to be transparent on bird flu spread

THE JAKARTA POST

Health experts warned the government Saturday to be more transparent on the latest bird flu developments in Indonesia, especially after the revelation of its possible transmission from human to human. Chief welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie said Friday that limited person-to-person transmissions of bird flu have likely occurred in seven clusters of cases across the country, but he ruled out a pandemic of the deadly virus. Senior health officials struck a cautious note, however, when asked separately about the possible transmission of bird flu among people. The experts told The Jakarta Post that the government might be holding information on whether or not the virus has already been transmitted between people…

Click here to access the full article.

June 12 2006

WHO, China step up cooperation in combating infectious diseases

CHINA POST

The World Health Organization and the Chinese government said Monday they were setting up a center to boost cooperation in fighting emerging infectious diseases like severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and influenza. The WHO collaborating center will be opened Tuesday at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Guangzhou, the capital of south China's Guangdong province, a joint statement from the WHO and China's Ministry of Health said. The center will serve as a liaison between the WHO and the Guangdong disease control facility, with the aim of increasing information-sharing between China and the rest of the world, the statement said…

Click here to access the full article.

June 12 2006

Journalists have no power to announce bird flu outbreak… Agric Ministry cautions

THE GHANIAN CHRONICLE

by Emmanuel Akli, Takoradi

The Western Regional Director of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Mr. David Okine, has cautioned journalists not to rush into printing or broadcasting any suspected cases of bird flu in any part of the country. He said journalist with the information of suspected bird flu should first report to either the district or regional director of veterinary services for investigation. According to him, even if the district or regional veterinary officer's investigations proved that the reported case was indeed bird flu, he had no power to go public with his finding…

Click here to access the full article.

June 12 2006

UN agency to lead in media project against bird flu

CHINA VIEW

YANGON, (Xinhua) - The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) will lead in a joint media project with Myanmar government and non-governmental media on prevention against bird flu among the public, a local weekly reported Monday. The 1.8-million-U.S.-dollar project will be joined by the government-run MRTV, Health Ministry and private video producers, the Voice quoted the UNICEF resident office as saying. The project includes shooting of video series on education against bird flu and its telecast, the sources said…

Click here to access the full article.

June 8 2006

China plagued by bird-flu cover-ups

ASIA TIMES

by Xu Xiang

YANGZHOU, CHUZHOU and CHENZHOU, China - Having learned a bitter lesson from covering up the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in early 2003, the central government of China now is said to be taking a more positive, responsible attitude in dealing with avian influenza, or bird flu. But that hasn't filtered down to the provinces. As the market economy has taken root in China, the country has become increasingly decentralized. Because of this, Beijing's tough orders regarding the prevention of a bird-flu outbreak may not necessarily be carried out at all levels. Overwhelmingly concerned with economic growth, some local officials still tend to cover up any outbreak of bird flu, defying Beijing's order to report new cases immediately…

Click here to access the full article.

June 8 2006

Indonesia launches bird flu awareness campaign

PEOPLE'S DAILY ONLINE

Indonesia launched a bird flu awareness campaign on Wednesday in a bid to stop the rapid increasing of bird flu cases in the country. The Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari asked the people to watch out for the avian influenza (AI) virus by avoiding direct contact with poultry and keeping poultry out of their homes. "The number of bird flu patients has increased rapidly in Indonesia, and in Medan, the largest bird flu patient cluster has been found recently. Laboratory-check results show that they were infected with the avian influenza virus from poultry. Therefore, poultry must be kept separate from human being," said the minister…

Click here to access the full article.

June 8 2006

India is free of bird flu: official

GULF TIMES

NEW DELHI: Bird flu has subsided in India with no new cases reported since March, the top official in charge of prevention efforts said yesterday. The H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which has killed more than 125 people worldwide since 2003, was first diagnosed in India in February when thousands of birds were found dead in Navapur in the western state of Maharashtra. Within weeks it had spread to some nearby areas including across the state border in Gujarat. About 1mn birds were culled in a radius of around 10km from the affected areas. No human infection has yet been reported…

Click here to access the full article.

June 7 2006

Africa needs $760 mln to fight bird flu-report

ALERT NET

by Boris Groendahl

VIENNA, June 7 (Reuters) - Africa needs $760 million to fight bird flu over the next three years, about three times as much as donors pencilled into their $1.9 billion pledge made in January, the African Union and aid organisations said Wednesday. The pledge made at a donors conference in Beijing did not assume bird flu would break out in Africa, according to a study by the AU, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) presented in Vienna.But eight African countries have reported the virus since February, and OIE Director General Bernard Vallat told Reuters on the sidelines of a Vienna conference of bird flu coordinators that this increased the funds needed significantly…

Click here to access the full article.

May 31 2006

Bird traders fingered in spread of avian flu

INDEPENDENT ONLINE

by Svetlana Kovalyova

Rome - The multi-billion-dollar trade in poultry and wild birds, especially illegal trading, may have helped spread deadly bird flu around the world, leading bird flu experts said on Tuesday. The virus has killed 127 of the 224 people it has infected since re-emerging in Asia in late 2003, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). As the deadly H5N1 virus spread rapidly in the past six months from Asia into parts of the Middle East, Europe and Africa, specialists have been working out how it travels…

Click here to access the full article.

May 31 2006

Wild bird role in flu 'unclear'

BBC NEWS

by Matt McGrath

The role of swans and other wild birds in spreading bird flu is still unclear and uncertain, according to scientists. Many of the assumptions being made about the part played in the spread of the disease by wild birds simply do not stand up to analysis, they say. International researchers are in Rome for a two-day conference to discuss the spread of avian flu. Poultry vaccination and a greater emphasis on Africa were also called for by the delegates…

Click here to access the full article.

May 13 2006

Poultry markets must reform to help fight bird flu

VIET NAM NEWS

HA NOI - Changing the behaviour of live-poultry traders and consumers while re-arranging the workings of live-poultry markets in Viet Nam are part of the long-term control measures to prevent the bird flu virus from spreading among poultry, a workshop reported. Agriculture officials from Viet Nam and the United States gathered in Ha Noi on Thursday for a two-day workshop, co-organised by the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and the US Department of Agriculture to discuss bird flu control measures...

Click here to access the full article.

May 13 2006

Poultry Business loses US $1 million a day Due to Bird-flu Fears

YEMEN OBSERVER

SANA'A - Yemen's poultry industry is losing roughly US $1 million a day due to the potentially deadly H5N1 avian flu, according to officials at the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, who say this figure could reach as high as $5 million if the problem goes unchecked. "Due to consumers' fears of the pandemic, losses to the poultry sector are estimated at US $1 million per day," said Ghalib al-Eryani, director of the government-run Animal Resources Department, speaking to the IRIN news agency. Even though Yemen is officially free of the disease, many citizens have abstained from eating chicken or eggs due to frenzied reports of bird-flu epidemics elsewhere in the region. "I'm trying to keep my meals free of chickens and eggs - I haven't eaten them for months," said Abdulfatah Ahmed, a bookseller in the capital, Sana'a. "I'm afraid...

Click here to access the full article.

May 11 2006

Thai Press Reports: Myanmar (Burma) - bird flu outbreaks raise alarm in region

BURMA NET NEWS

The possibility of an outbreak of avian flu in Burma has became a major concern of the five member countries of the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (Acmecs) forum and international organisations in charge of bird flu control, the Bangkok Post reports. Access to information about the bird flu situation in neighbouring countries, especially Burma, was considered a key to the effective control of the spread of the virus in the sub-region, a senior Thai official said on the sidelines of the Acmecs meeting on avian influenza pandemic preparedness in Bangkok on May 8...

Click here to access the full article.

Apr 26 2006

Ivory Coast becomes seventh African country with bird flu

BAKU TODAY

Two outbreaks of bird flu have occurred in Ivory Coast, making it the seventh country in Africa to report the disease, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) announced. The viral strains have been confirmed by European labs as the highly pathogenic type of H5N1 avian influenza, it said on Wednesday. The outbreaks, affecting seven backyard chickens, nine ducks and a sparrowhawk, were detected in Abidjan, it said. The incident began on March 30 and was confirmed on Tuesday, said the OIE's alert message...

Click here to access the full article.

Apr 26 2006

Don't give in to bird flu fatigue, says WHO expert

KHALEEJ TIMES ONLINE

GENEVA - The world must prepare for a long-term fight against bird flu and not give in to fatigue that seems to have set in, a senior World Health Organisation (WHO) official warned. Keiji Fukuda, acting director of WHO's global influenza programme, said it was the H5N1 virus's tenacity rather than geographical spread that has raised the risk it could evolve into a form that moves more easily among humans. The deadly virus, first seen in this outbreak in Asia in 2003, has infected birds in a score more countries in recent months, moving into the Middle East, Europe and, worryingly for the WHO, into Africa where resources to fight it are scarce...

Click here to access the full article.

Apr 24 2006

Africans told to step up bird flu co-operation

SOUTH AFRICAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION (SABC)

African scientists must step up co-operation to fight bird flu, with lack of information almost as dangerous as lack of resources as the continent faces its next big health threat, a regional meeting heard today. "We cannot succeed if we do not come together to fight this flu," Uladi Mussa, the Malawi agricultural minister, said at the opening of a UN-sponsored workshop drawing veterinary, agriculture and health officials from 19 African countries. "We have to discuss and find ways of co-operation on how we can contain it, share knowledge on how to prevent it because prevention is better than cure...


Click here to access the full article.

Apr 24 2006

African leaders brainstorm on bird flu

IOL

Blantyre - Veterinary and wildlife experts from 19 African countries on Monday begin a five-day meeting in Malawi to discuss better surveillance against bird flu, which has hit five countries on the continent. "The bird flu pandemic poses a devastating effect to millions of people in Africa who depend heavily on poultry for both income and food," Mazlan Jusoh, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) country representative in Malawi, said in a statement issued on Sunday. "The FAO reiterates the urgent need to increase surveillance and early detection of bird flu to mitigate an outbreak...

Click here to access the full article.

Apr 21 2006

No playing down of bird flu dangers

THE PAKISTAN OBSERVER

by Saeed Malik

THE Government of Pakistan through its Ministry of Agriculture has in recent days been assuring the people that there was no fear of bird flu virus in the country. Through print and electronic media the people were advised not to get panicky about the viral disease as the situation was under its control. The people were also advised to eat poultry products fearlessly as in the past as cooked chickens and eggs were not injurious of human health. It created a feeling of relaxation among the people. However, on April 16 hopes for the recovery of bird flu-afflicted poultry industry in Pakistan were shattered by the discovery and confirmation by the government of the outbreak of the deadly HSNI strain at a farm in Sihala some 30 kilometers from Islamabad...

Click here to access the full article.

Apr 19 2006

KYRGYZSTAN: Fear of bird flu hits poultry market

IRIN NEWS

BISHKEK - Consumers are staying away from poultry products in Kyrgyzstan following reported cases of bird flu in neighbouring Kazakhstan and China, a move that is having a devastating impact on local farmers and vendors. "We've had to lower the prices after the bad news," said Gusyuna Aitbaeva, who works in the central Osh market in the capital Bishkek. "Demand has dropped and there has definitely been a change in the type of customers we are seeing. People with low income who were too poor to buy chicken before are now buying, while middle class and wealthy families are simply staying away...

Click here to access the full article.

Apr 14 2006

Farmer fearing bird flu shoots poultry to smithereens

MIDDLE EAST TIMES

Gripped by fear over bird flu warnings, a farmer from the southern province of Qena was quick to respond to the government's call to kill sick poultry. But he chose to do it his way... The farmer shot his chickens, his geese and his other birds until he'd done away with them all. Apparently thinking he'd killed the chicken flu along with his birds, he then cleaned up the mass of blood, flesh, feathers and bones, and placed them all in a large bag, threw some rocks inside, and dumped the lot into a local canal...

Click here to access the full article.

Apr 12 2006

EGYPT: Government launches anti-bird flu training programme, reports 12th case

IRIN NEWS

CAIRO - The government launched a training programme this week to prepare professionals and volunteers involved in combating the spread of the potentially pathogenic H5N1 avian virus. "Faced with a deepening crisis, the government has launched a new programme to train personnel dealing with bird flu," said health ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman Shahine. "Those partaking in the training will be instructed on culling techniques, what special clothing to wear during mass fowl culling and how to raise awareness in the most affected areas...


Click here to access the full article.

Apr 2 2006

Bird flu may trigger economic recession

GHANA REVIEW

Accra (Gh) - The bird flu pandemic which is cutting across the globe could trigger the first global recession in nearly 25 years, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has warned. If bird flu mutates to humans, it could cut the world economic output by as much as $300bn, the bank said. "At its worst, this would essentially halt economic growth for one year and throw the world into the first global recession since 1982," ADB said...


Click here to access the full article.

Apr 4 2006

UN wants China to teach world about bird flu

IOL

Beijing - The United Nation's top official on bird flu urged China Tuesday to share its experience with other countries on how to tackle the disease threatening to become a pandemic. Speaking at the end of his third visit to China as UN co-ordinator for avian influenza, David Nabarro said he had tried to convince Chinese officials that the knowledge and experience they gained fighting bird flu could help the rest of the world. "Perhaps the most important thing that I would wish to happen is that Chinese officials at all levels who have been working on this issue for many many months... have a chance to interact with colleagues from governments who are just beginning to struggle, to share with them some of the trials and tribulations they have faced...

Click here to access the full article.

March 23 2006

WEST AFRICA: Lack of institutional muscle threatens fight against bird flu, say African leaders

IRIN NEWS

LIBREVILLE - With four African countries stricken by avian flu - including one with a human infection - UN agencies and African leaders have called for sweeping measures to contain the deadly virus, notably the need to come up with funds on the world’s poorest continent. Representatives of UN agencies and 46 African nations wrapped up a three-day conference in the Gabon capital Libreville on Wednesday, issuing an 18-point declaration on how to keep the virus in check…

Click here for the full article.

March 23 2006

Avian Flu Spreads to Gaza, Jordan Valley and Possibly Elsewhere

ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS

by Ezra HaLevi

Agriculture Minister Ze'ev Boim (Kadima) has ordered the transfer of 300,000 doses of Tamiflu, a drug to combat avian flu, to the Palestinian Authority (PA). More cases of the flu have been found. So far, no human cases of the flu have been reported, but dead birds who had caught the flu were found in the former Jewish community of Netzarim, now controlled by the PA. Dead birds were also found in Rafiach - the southern Gaza town known for its weapons smuggling tunnels…

Click here for the full article.

March 22 2006

Palestinians on state of alert for bird flu, and virus spreads to Pakistan

PRETORIA NEWS

Islamabad - Pakistan has become the latest country to confirm bird flu in poultry, while Egypt says a woman is believed to be infected with the virus, the country's third case in less than a week. Bird flu has spread with alarming speed in recent weeks as it marches deeper into Africa, Europe and Asia. The United States says it is likely to arrive on its shores before the end of the year. Fears are growing that the H5N1 flu virus will mutate and pass easily from one person to another, but for the moment it remains hard for people to catch it from infected birds…

Click here for the full article.

March 19 2006

Africa's clock ticking on bird flu virus

THE JAPAN TIMES

by Cesar Chelala

NEW YORK - The spread of avian flu to Africa and Europe, although expected, is unwelcome news. In the last few weeks the disease has reached several states in northern Nigeria and Niger. Together with other countries in West Africa, they are on the bird migratory route from Central Asia and the Middle East, where the virus has already surfaced. The possibility that the virus will spread into other African countries demands that early detection and rapid-response mechanisms be put in place to contain what may become a devastating human pandemic…

Click here for the full article.

March 17 2006

Myanmar lifts media blackout on bird flu

THE INDEPENDENT

Myanmar's secretive military rulers on Thursday lifted a news blackout on the country's first known outbreak of bird flu and sought international help to contain the spread of the lethal virus. State-run media for the first time released details about bird flu and preventive measures against the H5N1 virus, which was confirmed in poultry Monday in the central town of Mandalay. Since the outbreak, health authorities have slaughtered 12,500 chickens and quarantined 43 farms near Mandalay, 700 kilometers (450 miles) north of Yangon…

Click here for the full article.

March 16 2006

People's ignorance could spark bird flu time-bomb, says expert

THE STAR

by Leon Marshall

The threat of mass deaths among South Africa's wild birds keeps looming larger as a variety of avian diseases, particularly Newcastle, take their toll. There have been no cases of the fearsome H5N1 strain that has struck in Asia and countries in Europe and West Africa, and which has international health agencies on tenterhooks. But Dr Gerhard Verdoorn, director of BirdLife South Africa, is apprehensive. He says the Department of Agriculture seems well equipped to handle problems in the poultry industry, having excellent protocols for dealing with outbreaks of Newcastle disease on chicken farms. But what worries him is whether people generally would know what to do if H5N1 arrived here…

Click here for the full article.

March 16 2006

Bird flu: Scientists continue virus trail

DECCAN HERALD

by Kalyan Ray

Even as culling operation has started in Jalgaon in the wake of fresh bird flu incidence, scientists are groping in the dark on the possible source of infection. Though migratory birds are the main suspects, there is no confirmation. The Bhopal-based High Security Animal Disease Laboratory (HSADL) - the only laboratory capable of handling highly pathogenic avian influenza virus - has so far tested 1,000 samples from migratory birds, but all tested negative…

Click here for the full article.

March 15 2006

Regional taskforce on Avian Flu inaugurated

NEWS IN GHANA

The public have been told that it is only the Director of Veterinary Service, who has the prerogative to announce the outbreak of Avian Influenza or the bird flu in any part of the country. People and particularly the media should therefore refrain from making any scary comments on the disease, since this may send wrong signals, especially to the international community. Western Regional Minister Mr. Joseph Boahen Aidoo made the remarks, when he inaugurated a ten-member Regional Taskforce on the bird flu at Sekondi on Tuesday…

Click here for the full article.

March 15 2006

Nigeria: UN Lauds Nigerians Over Fight Against Bird Flu

ALL AFRICA

by Joe Oroye

The United Nation's system senior coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza, Dr. David Nabarro, has commended Nigeria for acting promptly to stop the spread of bird flu in the country. Dr. Nabarro made the commendation in his contribution during the update press briefing on the outbreak of the bird-flu in Nigeria held by the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mr. Frank Nweke Jnr, at the Banquet hall of the Presidential Villa in Abuja Monday. According to Dr. Nabarro of the United Nations Development Group office New York, the prompt actions taken by the Nigerian government had helped in no small way to constrain further spreading in the country…

Click here for the full article.

March 15 2006

Sri Lankan urges consumers not to chicken out due to flu fears

TODAY ONLINE

A Sri Lankan farmer distributes food to his chickens at his poultry farm in Piliyandala, in February 2006. Sri Lanka stepped up a campaign to encourage sales of chicken and eggs in the face of falling consumption after the lethal bird flu virus was found in poultry in neighbouring India. Sri Lanka stepped up a campaign to encourage sales of chicken and eggs in the face of falling consumption after the lethal bird flu virus was found in poultry in neighbouring India. Government ministers appealed to consumers not to "chicken out" even though the H5N1 virus was detected in India's western Maharashtra state February 18…

Click here for the full article.

March 13 2006

Bird Flu in Africa

SOS GLOBE

by Caritas

A human outbreak of avian influenza in Africa could overwhelm the entire continent, which has already been incapacitated by AIDS, according to the United Nations agency heading the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic. "AIDS has made a mess of Africa's health care systems, and none of the factors that created the AIDS disaster have gone away," said Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, on a recent visit to Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. "But with bird flu," he continued, "we could be looking at things getting worse in a matter of months, not decades."…

Click here for the full article.

Feb 16 2006

Malacañang calls on LGUs, NGOs, other sectors to help in information dissemination on avian flu

BALITA.ORG

Malacañang enjoined on Thursday all sectors, including local government units (LGUs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and schools, to help the government in raising public awareness on the deadly avian flu. Press Secretary and concurrent Presidential Spokesman Ignacio R. Bunye said information dissemination on the deadly effects of H5N1 virus or bird flu on fowls, including wild birds and even human beings, must reach all parts of the country up to the grassroots level. He said the government remains on guard for the deadly virus so the Philippines will remain the only country in Asia that is bird flu-free…

Click here for the full article.

Feb 16 2006

Bird Flu Alarm Across Europe

ZAMAN ONLINE

Bird flu, first appearing in South Asia and Turkey, has also started to spread to European countries. The disease, also known as Avian Influenza, spread to Italy, Greece, and Bulgaria last week and now has surfaced in Slovenia, Germany, and Hungary. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) animal products and health office based in the Italian capital, Rome warned the disease might continue to spread. Head of the Rome office, Samuel Jutzi said when wild birds start to migrate in spring it will constitute an even greater risk for Europe…

Click here for the full article.

Feb 16 2006

No more chicken in the menu

DAILY SUN

by Robert Obioha Okere

Indeed, Nigeria has many problems at hand. In politics, there is amala brand of politics whose only qualification is primary six attempted. The men of Nigeria Police would want a piece of the NLC action called strike. I prefer the police going on strike than to be collecting N20 at every check point even at gun point. In the area of health, things are not getting better. Like the economic front, the health sector is besieged with a lot of human and animal sicknesses, we have HIV/AIDS, polio, malaria, jaundice, kwashiokor. In fact, any disease in the globe must land in Nigeria. The latest is the Bird Flu that has come to live with us. Because of that, people no longer eat chicken in restaruants, fast food joints and even the Nkwobi joint in the neighbourhood…

Click here for the full article.

Feb 16 2006

Nigeria keeps bird flu chiefs off farms

THE STANDARD

Authorities in the northern Nigerian state of Kano, where deadly bird flu is decimating chickens and endangering people, have discouraged UN experts from visiting poultry farms. Two experts from the Food and Agriculture Organization have arrived in the capital of the state, where the deadly H5N1 strain was confirmed on February 8 on two farms, and more than 30 other farms are reporting mass poultry deaths. The Kano state authorities "said it was not feasible in terms of biosecurity…"

Click here for the full article.

Feb 15 2006

Bird flu: Sambawa's workers for test

VANGUARD

by Sola Ogundipe

KANO - NIGERIAN scientists examined blood samples from farm workers yesterday as foreign experts arrived to help protect Africa from its possible first human cases of the H5N1 strain of bird flu. Meanwhile, hopes of the discovery of an effective vaccine against the bird flu are not rising, but fears are rising that certain mutations occurring in the H5N1virus could bring the world closer to the global pandemic. Kaduna State Health Commissioner, Mohammed Abubakar Bala, said tests were being carried out on workers from the site of Africa's first confirmed H5N1 outbreak among chickens. "We are still examining the staff of Sambawa Farm. It’s an on-going exercise we haven’t concluded..."

Click here for the full article.

Feb 15 2006

Vietnam to launch new bird flu vaccination drive

TODAY ONLINE

Vietnam will launch a new campaign to vaccinate vast flocks of poultry against avian influenza, despite an absence of bird flu outbreaks for two months. Vietnam has recently imported 150 million doses of vaccine from China, Hoang Van Nam, deputy director of the ministry's veterinary department, said adding that the campaign would cost six million dollars. "The state leaders have asked us not to relax our vigilance and our measures against bird flu as a risk of relapse is still high in Vietnam…"

Click here for the full article.

Feb 15 2006

Ghanaian farmers told not to panic over bird flu

PEOPLE'S DAILY ONLINE

Ghana's Northern Regional Director of Food and Agriculture Sylvester Adongo has assured poultry farmers in the region that the region had taken adequate measures to stop the "Avian Influenza" (Bird Flu) from spreading to the country. He called on Ghanaians not to panic but to collaborate and cooperate with agricultural extension officers and the security agencies to ensure that poultry products did not find their way into the country through unapproved routes. Adongo was speaking at a one-day awareness creation forum on the "Avian Influenza," which was organized by the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly in Tamale on Tuesday…

Click here for the full article.

Feb 14 2006

Bird flu in Nigeria causes anxiety in Ghana

ACCRA DAILY MAIL

by Maame Efua Moses

The news of the outbreak of the bird flu in Nigeria has created fear and panic among Ghanaians. A number of people ADM spoke to were very worried especially when one of the major sources of protein in Ghanaian is chicken. In fact, chicken is the favourite at parties, in restaurants and just for ordinary consumption. "In fact we need to be very careful. If this thing gets into the country, we will really suffer", said a petty trader to ADM. A chicken seller said: "The fact that the disease is in Nigeria means we are not safe. For me a chicken seller, if the disease breaks out then it means my source of livelihood will be over"…

Click here for the full article.

Feb 12 2006

Expert warns of H5N1 mutation

TAIPEI TIMES

The spread of bird flu from Asia to eastern Europe and now west Africa has increased the chance that the virus will mutate and cause a possible pandemic among humans, said UN bird flu chief David Nabarro. Nabarro said on Friday there is no evidence yet of any change in the bird flu virus.
"Unfortunately, we cannot tell when the mutation might happen, or where it might happen, or how unpleasant the mutant virus will turn out to be," Nabarro said in an interview. "Nevertheless, we must remain on high alert for the possibility of sustained human-to-human virus transmission and of a pandemic starting…

Click here for the full article.

Feb 12 2006

SA has no drugs to fight bird flu

BUSINESS REPORT

by Neesa Moodley

Durban - As Avian flu winged its way onto the African continent this month and reports of an outbreak in Nigeria flooded the news last week, the Medicines Control Council confirmed that the anti-viral drug, Tamiflu is still not registered in the South African market. For some time now, the MCC has reported it is trying to fast-track the process. International manufacturer, Roche, which holds the intellectual property rights to Tamiflu said it was in negotiations with 12 potential partner companies for international supply agreements. A sub-licence has already been granted to Shanghai Pharmaceutical Group but Roche's local spokesman, Brenda Xiphu said no negotiations had taken place with any South African manufacturers…

Click here for the full article.

Feb 10 2006

Control of bird flu difficult in Iraq

KURDISH MEDIA

by Paul Garwood

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Some Iraqi farmers are letting their birds loose rather than slaughter them and the lack of a proper shipping container has kept the tissue sample of a man suspected of dying of bird flu sitting in Baghdad despite reports it was being tested abroad. Poor communications, scarce equipment and the dangers of the insurgency are all plaguing efforts to combat bird flu in Iraq. In Nigeria, meanwhile, the deadly H5N1 strain has been detected in two more northern states and has been killing birds - some 100,000 - for weeks, Nigerian authorities said Thursday, raising fears the disease will spread elsewhere in Africa…

Click here for the full article.

Jan 14 2006

EU pledges 100 million dollars for global bird flu fight

TODAY ONLINE

EU external affairs commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner of Austria gives a press conference on European policies to stem spread of bird flu at the EU headquarters in Brussels. The European Commission pledged 100 million dollars for the global fight against bird flu...


Click here for the full article.

Jan 13 2006

Concerted effort needed to fight spread of bird flu

THE DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE

Flu viruses recognize no national boundaries. It is impossible to contain the spread of infectious diseases without internationally coordinated efforts to achieve that goal... Twenty-one nations, mainly from East and Southeast Asia, met this week for a two-day conference in Tokyo to discuss how to fight new types of influenza. The international meeting, initially proposed by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, has set the stage for a campaign by nations in this part of the world to contain the spread of new flu viruses at an early stage...

Click here for the full article.

Jan 13 2006

Indonesia demands $700 mln to counter bird flu

CHINA VIEW, JAKARTA

(Xinhuanet) Indonesia demands seven trillion rupiah (some 700 million U.S. dollars) to stop the spread of bird flu outbreak in the country, Indonesia Health Minister Siti Sufari Fadillah said here Friday...

Click here for the full article.

Jan 13 2006

Porous borders add to Iraq bird flu fears

KURDISH MEDIA.com By Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD, (Reuters) - Iraq said on Thursday it was on high alert to prevent the spread of avian flu from neighbouring Turkey, but officials conceded that poor border controls would make it difficult to enforce a ban on importing birds...


Click here for the full article.

Jan 13 2006

Bird flu: More drugs, funds on cards

TIMES OF INDIA

TOKYO: Tamiflu maker Roche Pharmaceuticals said on Friday it was ready to donate more antiviral pills to Asia and aid organisations promised to speed the flow of funds to help the region battle bird flu...


Click here for the full article.

Jan 13 2006

Behind increasing bird flu threat, international dispute hampers global response

INTERFAX CHINA Beijing

Behind the increasingly urgent international bird flu threat, an international dispute over viral samples and national pride appears to be hampering the global response...

Click here for the full article.

Jan 12 2006

WHO: Avian Influenza Precautions will Suffice

ZAMAN ONLINE By Ibrahim Asalioglu, Ankara

Turkey managed to take precautions in a "timely and properly," manner, it was said in a statement from The World Health Organization (WHO). ..The current situation is not bad enough to cause panic, according to the organization, adding that tourists should feel perfectly safe traveling to Turkey...

Click here for the full article.

Jan 11 2006

Zimbabwe on high alert after bird flu warning

ZIMBABWE OBSERVER by Staff Editors

Zimbabwe is on high alert following warnings of the possible arrival of a virulent strain of bird flu in Africa. The Sunday Mail newspaper said the health ministry had established a task force "to put in place all the necessary measures needed for the early detection of the influenza virus."...

Click here for the full article.

Jan 11 2006

FAO warns bird flu virus could become endemic in Turkey and poses a serious risk to neighbouring countries

PAYVAND

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warned today that the highly pathogenic Avian Influenza virus H5N1 could become endemic in Turkey and poses a serious risk to neighbouring countries...

Click here for the full article.

Jan 11 2006

Bird flu survivor returns home

HURRIYET

The brother of the three siblings who died last week has finally returned home. Ali Hasan Kocyigit, 6 years old, arrived home on Monday to open arms from his
mother: "This is my whole world. It's like I'm forgetting everything."...

Click here for the full article.

Jan 11 2006

Avian Influenza: A Ticking Time Bomb?

OHMYNEWS INTERNATIONAL by Alexander Krabbe (internews)

[Analysis] A worst-case scenario says 100 million could die within weeks of a global outbreak "Maybe more than 100 million deaths in a few weeks worldwide."... This worst-case scenario was brought up in one of our medical school microbiology lessons covering viral infections and the dangers of flu (influenza). All the students were suddenly very quiet. The professor's statement also peaked my interest in one of the most important global challenges of the 21st century...

Click here for the full article.

Jan 10 2006

Bird flu transmission to humans may be frequent: study

CHINA VIEW BEIJING

(Xinhuanet) -- Hundreds to thousands of people may be infected with bird flu, but have mild symptoms and do not get admitted to hospital, thereby failing to appear in official figures, Swedish researchers reported Monday...A survey of 45,478 people in FilaBavi, a Vietnamese demographic surveillance site with confirmed outbreaks of H5N1 in poultry during April to June 2004, found as many as 750 developed flu-like symptoms after contact with sick or dead birds, according to researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm...

Click here for the full article.

Jan 9 2006

Bird flu, Kurdistan in typing

KURDISH MEDIA.com By Baqi Barzani

The figure of Kurdish siblings succumbing to the highly pathogenic form of avian influenza is on the rise. This deadly pandemic (Bird Flu) recently detected in Kurdistan continues claiming the lives of many underprivileged and improvised Kurdish citizens in Kurdistan (Southeastern Turkey)...

Click here for the full article.

Jan 10 2006

Vietnam's bird flu lessons could help Turkey: health experts

HAVEERU DAILY By Didier Lauras / AFP

HANOI, Jan 10 - Vietnam has been on the front line of the bird flu crisis for two years and has made significant progress in its management of the disease which could help countries such as Turkey, experts say... While nobody is thinking of declaring Vietnam free of the deadly H5N1 virus, health experts say the efforts of the communist nation - which has recorded over half of all confirmed human bird flu fatalities - are paying off...

Click here for the full article.

Jan 10 2006

Boy is China's 8th bird flu case

BANGKOK POST

Beijing (dpa) - China is reporting its eighth human infection with H5N1 avian influenza, and a health official warned that weak monitoring in rural areas meant that more cases may be found... Tests had confirmed the virus in a 6-year-old boy who was in critical condition in the central province of Hunan...

Click here for the full article.

Jan 10 2006

$15.7 Million Compensation Package For Livestock Farmers

BRUNEIDIRECT.COM By Azlan Othman

Bandar Seri Begawan - His Royal Highness Prince Hj Al-Muhtadee Billah, the Crown Prince and Senior Minister at the Prime Minister's Office, yesterday said the country has allocated $15.7 million in compensation package to be given to poultry farmers in case the Sultanate faces an influenza pandemic, which reflects the concern of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam...

Click here for the full article.

Jan 9 2006

More Hospitals To Be Dedicated For Bird Flu, Says Chua

BERNAMA.COM

PUTRAJAYA(Bernama) -- The Health Ministry will increase the number of hospitals dedicated for treating the bird flu or the Avian Influenza (AI) from the 21 hospitals available currently... Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said between 15 to 20 more hospitals all over the country would be added to the list...

Click here for the full article.

Jan 4 2006

Asia Remains Key in Battle Against Bird Flu

THE CHOSUN ILBO

Fears of a global human influenza epidemic have grown in recent months as the H5N1 bird flu virus spread for the first time to Europe. But experts say the response to the disease in Asia, where the strain first appeared, remains the key to preventing a pandemic...

Click here for the full article.

2005

Is Bird Flu a Natural Disaster Or Human-Made Calmity?

BEIJING REVIEW

This autumn, the H5N1 virus has tainted the idyllic scene of birds in the sky making their annual migration. Experts have discovered that the virus causing the large-scale death of poultry and wild birds is being carried around the world by migratory birds. The virus has so far only been transmitted to humans in isolated cases. But experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) fear the virus may mutate to a form transmittable from human to human, resulting in a global epidemic with millions of deaths, comparable to the SARS outbreaks in early 2003. All of a sudden, people are panicking about the threat from our feathered friends...

Click here for the full article.