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Thu Jan 31, 7:32 AM ET An Indian chicken shop owner waits for customers at a stall in Kolkata, 31 January 2008. Bangladesh on Thursday rejected suggestions it was the source of the massive bid flu outbreak in the neighbouring Indian state of West Bengal, saying India had the deadly disease first.(AFP/Deshakalyan Chowdhury) (INDIA) (BANGLADESH) |
Thu Jan 31, 1:50 PM ET Ducks and chickens are sold in a market in Ha Tay Province,Vietnam, Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2008. Fears of a global bird flu pandemic that once dominated headlines have largely vanished in the West, but four years after the virus began ravaging Asian poultry, it continues to quietly spread. (AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki) (VIETNAM) |
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Thu Jan 31, 12:54 PM ET Flamingos rest at a pond in Ocean Park in Hong Kong February 26, 2004. (Kin Cheung/Reuters) (HONG KONG) |
Thu, 31 Jan 2008 2:54 AM PST Six swans from the Abbotsbury Swannery have tested positive for the disease. The virus is not thought to have spread to wild birds in the area. (UK)
Swans got bird flu from wild bird |
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"In December," said Dr. Martin Gilbert, a field veterinarian, "we got an e-mail from a chap in southern India who'd been photographing geese at a local lake. He didn't even see it in the field, but in his pictures, he noticed that one had a yellow neck collar. It was E6" (at bottom left of photograph at left). "Bar-headed geese hold the altitude record for birds," he said. "They migrate over the Himalayas, at 30,000 feet. That's the height of jumbo jets." Thousands of Miles From Home, and Possibly Carrying Avian Flu |
January 31, 2008, 6:50 am Donald G. McNeil in a malaria laboratory in Rockville, Md. (Credit: Susana Raab for The New York Times). Bird Flu - Still a Simmering Biological Bomb |
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Fri, 01 Feb 2008 3:27 AM PST Indian health officials walk through Namopara Bazar village to cull birds to curb the spread of bird flu, as poultry fell ill and died in new areas in the region, in Margram, about 270 kilometers (167 miles) north of Calcutta, India, Friday, Jan. 18, 2008. Panic is the buzzword in avian-flu hit West Bengal. Overzealous workers at a poultry farm have culled their chickens without even informing the authorities, officials said Friday. (INDIA) |
Fri, 01 Feb 2008 6:10 AM PST DEFRA has today confirmed that another two dead wild mute swans, collected on 28 January as part of wild bird surveillance in the same area in Dorset, have tested positive for highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu. (UK)
Two more swans test positive for H5N1 avian flu |
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Fri Feb 1, 12:39 PM ET Bangladeshi veterinary workers prepare to slaughter chickens at a poultry farm in Sripur village, on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, March 23, 2007. Livestock officials slaughtered more than 27,000 chickens and ducks in northern Bangladesh after bird flu was confirmed at a poultry farm near the border with India, a report said Friday. (BANGLADESH) |
Fri Feb 1, 7:00 PM ET The Agriculture Department cannot ensure its response plan for a bird flu outbreak will work, largely because many aspects of the plan have not been tested, an inspector general's report said Friday. (USDA)
USDA bird flu plan needs test
The USDA would be responsible for preventing or minimizing a bird flu outbreak among domestic animals. An outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza would create havoc in the egg and poultry market, now valued at about $27 billion.
But the report said the USDA had no plans to test several important parts of its plan. For example, one agency did not update its Web site to notify producers and other interested parties within 24 hours of a confirmed avian influenza outbreak, "highlighting the potential gap between reported accomplishments and actual achievements."
On the Net: Agriculture Department plan: http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/33701-01-HY.pdf |
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Fri Feb 1, 7:06 AM ET An Indian health official culls a duck to curb the spread of bird flu, as poultry fell ill and died in new areas in the region, in Badha village, Margram. India has put 26 people in isolation with bird flu symptoms and hundreds more people are being monitored, officials said on Friday as Pakistan and Thailand reported outbreaks of bird flu in poultry. (INDIA) |
Fri Feb 1, 11:39 AM ET A vendor transports chickens for sale at the local market on the outskirts of Siliguri in eastern Indian state of West Bengal, 31 January 2008. A health worker in an Indian state was put in isolation and hundreds of others who had slaughtered chickens to stem an outbreak of bird flu were being monitored, an official said Friday. (AFP/Diptendu Dutta) (INDIA) |
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Fri, 01 Feb 2008 2:07 AM PST A vendor holds a chick as he waits for customers outside a market in Karachi February 1, 2008. Pakistani authorities have detected an outbreak of the H5N1strain of bird flu at a poultry farm on the outskirts of its biggest city, Karachi, but officials said on Friday there was no likelihood of any human infection. The chicks are colour dyed to be more appealing to buyers, according to the vendor. REUTERS/Athar Hussain (PAKISTAN) |
Fri Feb 1, 2:13 PM ET A Bosnian pharmacist displays Swiss drug maker Roche's Tamiflu bird flu anti-viral tablets February 18, 2006. The main seasonal flu virus in the United States and Canada as well as parts of Europe shows higher resistance to the antiviral drug Tamiflu, raising questions about its potential effectiveness in a human bird flu pandemic. (BIRD FLU PANDEMIC) |
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Sat Feb 2, 3:17 PM ET Hens are pictured in Telceker village of Dogubeyazit, eastern Turkey. Turkish authorities in the northern coastal town of Samsun have erected a quarantine zone and begun slaughtering poultry after suspected cases of bird flu, news agency Anatolia reported on Saturday. (AFP/File/Mustafa Ozer ) (TURKEY) |
Saturday, February 2, 2008 The federal government's voluminous plans for dealing with pandemic flu do not adequately account for the overwhelming strain an outbreak would place on hospitals and public health systems trying to cope with millions of seriously ill Americans, some public health experts and local health officials say. (PANDEMIC FLU)
U.S. Flu Outbreak Plan Criticized
It Does Not Anticipate Strain on Hospitals, Local Health Officials Say |
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Sun Feb 3, 1:58 AM ET A man buying chicken at a poultry market near Kolkata in eastern Indian state of West Bengal, 2 February 2008. An Indian state said it had brought the country's worst ever bird flu outbreak under control on Saturday, just as neighbouring Bangladesh reported the virus was spreading. (AFP/Deshkalyan Chowdhury) (INDIA) |
Sat, 02 Feb 2008 08:01 PM PST Scientists are a step closer to cracking the deadly bird flu code following the development of a safe technique to study the virus by Australian researchers. (AUSTRALIA) (RESEARCH) The breakthrough was made by Griffith University's Professor Mark von Itzstein and his team at the Institute for Glycomics on the Gold Coast, in collaboration with an international project team at Hong Kong University's Institut Pasteur led by Professor Malik Peiris. The development, published this week in the world's leading international chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, will enable flu and drug specialists to study key surface proteins of the virus without fear of infection.
Aussies in step to crack bird flu code |
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Sun Feb 3, 5:32 AM ET An Indian vendor hands over a chicken to a buyer at a poultry market close to Kolkata in eastern Indian state of West Bengal, 2 February 2008. Indian authorities have extended the deadline for a massive poultry cull after a fresh outbreak of bird flu was reported in a village in West Bengal state, a minister said Sunday. (INDIA) |
Sun Feb 3, 6:07 PM ET Bangladeshi livestock vendors wait for customers at a roadside market in Dhaka. Bangladesh's poultry industry with an investment of about Tk 100,000 million (US$1.457 billion) is on the verge of collapse following the outbreak of bird flu and high prices of poultry feed and vaccine. (BANGLADESH) |
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Sun Feb 3, 8:30 PM ET The Australian and Chinese governments are funding a new research centre to develop treatments to boost the human immune system against bird flu. (RESEARCH)
Australia, China fund bird flu centre |
Mon, 04 Feb 2008 4:18 AM PST Staff are being given tips to stop the spread of flu. Experts fear that a worldwide outbreak of the virus will emerge from bird flu mixing with human flu and have warned staff at pubs and hotels to be prepared. "Currently all services and organisations are developing contingency plans in order to maintain essential services in the event that large numbers of people become ill." (UK) |
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Mon Feb 4, 5:12 AM ET An Indonesian poultry seller loads chickens into a cage Jan. 30, 2008. A 29-year old Indonesian woman has died of bird flu, bringing the death toll from the virus in the Southeast Asian country to 103, the health ministry said on Monday. (INDONESIA) |
Mon Feb 4, 9:23 PM ET Smiling Haitian girls. The Dajabon market, a key trading point for the two countries, which share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, was empty on Monday. Only a few people were spotted on Massacre River bridge, which is normally flooded with thousands of Haitians who are allowed to cross into the Dominican Republic on Mondays and Fridays to shop. (CARIBBEAN) |
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Mon Feb 4, 9:48 PM ET Bird flu has spread to three more districts in Bangladesh, taking the number of affected districts to 37, officials said, as the government pledged to raise compensation to farmers for culled poultry. (BANGLADESH) |
Tue Feb 5, 12:22 PM ET Hens are pictured in Telceker village of Dogubeyazit, eastern Turkey in 2006. Turkish authorities said Tuesday that bird flu has been detected in poultry in a village in the northwest of the country, the Anatolia news agency reported. (AFP/File/Mustafa Ozer ) (TURKEY) |
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Wed Feb 6, 1:03 AM ET A Bali chicken vendor. Indonesian scientists and officials said they were baffled by the "mysterious" behaviour of the bird flu virus here, which has already claimed nine lives this year in the world's worst-hit nation. (AFP/File/Sonny Tumbelaka) (INDONESIA) |
Tue, 05 Feb 2008 6:20 PM PST Indian villagers bring their birds for culling to curb the spread of bird fluI. 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. (INDIA) |
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Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:10 PM PST Medical experts feel that there is a possibility of avian flu becoming a human contagion. (VACCINES)
Avian flu can turn into human contagion, say experts
There is a fair chance that the avian flu virus might mutate and become a human virus, says Udaya B.S. Prakash, a pulmonologist with Mayo Clinic of Minnesota in the US.
"The influenza started off as a disease of the pigs, it was not a human disease. Eventually, it spread to humans, who became carriers of the disease," Prakash told IANS. |
Baltimore,MarylandTue, 05 Feb 2008 11:50 PM PST Killing sick animals for food or mistreating livestock can have devastating consequences ranging from the worldwide spread of avian flu to outbreaks of bird and swine flu that killed hundreds of thousands of people, a Maryland expert says. (USDA)
Mistreating livestock can have devastating consequences for peopleMichael Greger, director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at the Humane Society of the United States in Bethesda, published two journal articles linking the emergence of food-borne diseases to factory farming. |
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Wed Feb 6, 5:04 AM ET Bangladeshi vendors display chickens in a cage at a market in Dhaka in this May 3, 2007 file photo. Bird flu has spread to the Bangladesh capital Dhaka and to the port city Chittagong despite efforts by authorities to contain it, livestock officials said on Wednesday.REUTERS/Rafiqur Rahman/Files (BANGLADESH) |
Thu Feb 7, 2:02 AM ET Bangladeshi vendors display chickens at a market in Dhaka May 3, 2007. Bird flu has spread to another district in Bangladesh, taking the number of affected districts to 39, officials said on Thursday, as the government increased compensation to farmers for culled poultry in an effort to control the outbreak. (BANGLADESH) |
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Thu Feb 07 3:27 PM WHO said it was still gathering global data about "an increased number of (seasonal) H1N1 viruses with resistance to oseltamivir" following the first reports which emerged in Europe in late January. (WHO)
Australia, HK report drug-resistant flu
Australia and Hong Kong have joined North America and parts of Europe in reporting seasonal influenza viruses with increased resistance to the antiviral drug Tamiflu, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says. |
Thu Feb 07 9:15 PM A worker removes dead chicken from a poultry farm in Karachi February 2, 2008. According to health experts, cooking poultry at or above 70 degrees centigrade so that absolutely no meat remains raw and red is a safe way of killing the H5N1 virus. (PAKISTAN) |
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Wed Feb 13, 2:18 AM ET A worker sorts chickens to be slaughtered at a market in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008. "Some of the chickens and water fowl at her grandmother's house died suddenly, but her grandmother is fine," Sulistyowati told Reuters. (AP Photo/Irwin Fedriansyah) (INDONESIA) |
Wed Feb 13, 1:24 AM ET A masked person mop the floor of a pet bird market Sunday, June 17, 2007. Hong Kong health workers disinfected two wholesale food markets on Wednesday following the discovery of a dead wild bird suspected to have died from bird flu. The bird was found on Sunday at the Cheung Sha Wan wholesale food market in west Kowloon, which is near a temporary wholesale poultry market. .(HONG KONG) |
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Pigs' physical makeup allows them to contract and to spread influenza viruses to and from other species, such as humans and birds. Due to their susceptibility to influenza virus infections from other species, pigs can also serve as "mixing vessel hosts" that can produce new influenza virus strains that could pose a risk to human health. (Image courtesy of USDA/Agricultural Research Service) (CANADA) |
Sat Feb 16, 11:46 AM ET An Indonesian man weighs chickens at a market in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, May 23, 2007. A 3-year-old Indonesian boy has died of bird flu, a health official said Saturday, announcing the country's second death from the illness in one day. (INDONESIA) |
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Sun Feb 17, 7:08 AM ET A Bangladeshi vendor inspects his chicks in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, March 29, 2007. Bird flu has spread to another district in Bangladesh despite massive culling by authorities to control the outbreak, officials said on Sunday, bringing the number of affected districts to 43 out of 64. (BANGLADESH) |
Sun Feb 17, 6:58 AM ET Ducks are displayed for sale at Ha Vy wholesale poultry market, 25 km (15.5 miles) south of Hanoi February 17, 2008. Bird flu has killed a second man in Vietnam this week, infected a child and poultry in two provinces and a health official warned more people would fall sick of the virus, the government and state media said on Saturday. REUTERS/Kham (VIETNAM) |
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Sun, 17 Feb 2008 2:09 AM PST Providence Hospital medical technician Matt Cable wears a positive air pressure respirator which would protect hospital workers from air born diseases in the case of a pandemic event.Bob Pennell. (PANDEMIC FLU) |
Mon Feb 18, 4:12 AM ET Bangladeshi health ministry officials t a poultry farm in Chittagong on February 6, 2008. The spread of deadly bird flu in Bangladesh has forced the closure of 40 percent of the nation's poultry farms and left half a million poultry workers jobless, industry officials said on Monday. (AFP/jber alam) (BANGLADESH) |
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Mon Feb 18, 1:52 PM ET Two women look at wild birds swimming at a lake in Beijing, January 2008. A 22-year-old man in central China has died of bird flu, the country's ministry of health confirmed Monday, according to state news agency Xinhua. (AFP/File/Teh Eng Koon) (CHINA) |
Tue Feb 19, 6:21 AM ET Chinese pedestrian walks past a cage of ducks for sale in Loudi in south China's Hunan province, Tuesday Feb. 19, 2008. Chinese authorities confirmed Tuesday the second bird flu outbreak in Tibet this year, a day after reporting a 22-year-old man in central China died from the virus. (AP Photo) (TIBET) |
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Tue Feb 19, 6:30 AM ET Animal Health Department, has received many reports about poultry dying in large numbers in provinces. The department, in a separate report, said that bird flu has killed nearly 2,500 ducks and chickens in the northern provinces of Hai Duong, Nam Dinh and Tuyen Quang, bringing to seven the provinces on the government's bird flu watchlist. Animal health workers have slaughtered the remaining 1,900 birds at the three infected farms. (VIETNAM)
Dead poultry raises bird flu alarm in Vietnam |
Tuesday, February 19, 2008 LAW and order could break down and economies collapse in the event of a pandemic outbreak of avian (bird) or human flu, UN experts declared in Bahrain. (BIRD FLU PANDEMIC)
Flu pandemic chaos threat |
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Tue, 19 Feb 2008 8:29 AM PST WASHINGTON: A Bangalore University alumnus has found out why two mutations in the H1N1 avian flu virus were critical for viral transmission in humans during the 1918 pandemic outbreak that claimed about 50 million lives. (BIRD FLU PANDEMIC)
Reason behind 1918 flu found
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Wed Feb 20, 12:10 PM ET The north of Vietnam has been in the grip of a cold snap that has lasted for over a month, bringing rare ice and snow to mountain tops, killing crops and livestock and heightening the risk of flu and other respiratory diseases. (VIETNAM) |
Wed Feb 20, 1:28 PM ET A bat stretches its wings. 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 on Wednesday.(AFP/File/Greg Wood) (BIRD FLU PANDEMIC) |
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Thursday February 21, 08:09 AM "Kiwi, takahe and shore plover may be at risk of serious population declines if bird 'flu got into New Zealand and became established in wild birds," DOC veterinarian Kate McInnes said today. (NEW ZEALAND) |
Thu Feb 21, 8:29 AM ET Two Bangladeshi workers are treated in a hospital in Kuwait City after showing symptoms of being infected with the bird flu virus in 2007. 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 have reported. (AFP/File/Yasser Al-Zayyat) (BIRD FLU PANDEMIC) |
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Thu Feb 21, 9:13 AM ET Chickens are seen at a hennery in Baokang, Hubei province, which neighbours central China's Hunan province, February 20, 2008. A man from China's southern Guangxi autonomous region has died of the H5N1 bird flu virus, the third death from the disease since late last year, the Health Ministry said on Thursday. (REUTERS/Stringer) (CHINA) |
Thu Feb 21, 5:51 PM ET WASHINGTON - Next year's flu vaccine is getting a complete overhaul to provide protection against three new and different influenza strains hopefully better protection than this year's version. (BIRD FLU PANDEMIC) (VACCINES) Feds prescribe new recipe for flu shot |
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Fri Feb 22, 5:39 AM ET A poultry vendor eats his lunch at his shop. 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 Friday. (WHO) (AFP/Peter Parks)
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Saturday February 23, 2008 KLIA conducts Pandemic Influenza Simulation exercise( PANDEMIC FLU) "This exercise is to test and fine tune the KLIA Integrated Panflu Preparedness Plan at various levels of the departments and agencies and to assess the mechanism in dealing with the Influenza Pandemic," said Depart-ment of Civil Aviation (DCA) director general Datuk Azharuddin A. Rahman. |
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Fri, 22 Feb 2008 2:45 PM PST A pandemic flu is a global outbreak and occurs when a new influenza virus emerges where people have little or no immunity to it and no vaccine. ( PANDEMIC FLU)
Health Officials Release Flu Pandemic Video - West VirginiaVideo shows how to stay safe during a flu pandemicHUNTINGTON - According to the Cabell Huntington Health Department, a flu pandemic has occurred three times in the last 100 years. A pandemic flu is a global outbreak and occurs when a new influenza virus emerges where people have little or no immunity to it and no vaccine. This is why the health department has put together a video to make sure people are prepared. The best defense is proper hand washing. Health officials say the seasonal flu outbreak that's going around now is not pandemic flu. WOWK-TV West Virginia |
Sun Feb 24, 7:48 AM ET Chickens in a Dhaka market on February 24, 2008. Two more districts in central Bangladesh have been hit by bird flu, the government said Sunday, as the nation nears its third month of trying to control an outbreak of the virus among poultry. (AFP/Lalage Snow) (BANGLADESH) |
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Mon Feb 25, 4:21 AM ET A man loads poultry on his motorbike at a poultry market in Xiangfan, Hubei province February 25, 2008. A woman in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong has died of the H5N1 bird flu virus, which she probably contracted from sick poultry she kept in her backyard, Hong Kong government health officials said on Monday. REUTERS/Stringer (CHINA) |
Tue Feb 26, 1:25 AM ET Men push a motorbike which is transporting ducks to Ha Vy wholesale poultry market, 25 km (15.5 miles) south of Hanoi, February 26, 2008. China and Pakistan have announced bird flu outbreaks among poultry, a day after two women, one in China and one in neighboring Vietnam, died of the virus. REUTERS/Kham (BIRD FLU PANDEMIC) |
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Tue Feb 26, 6:44 AM ET BEIJING - A migrant worker has died of the H5N1 virus in southern China, the Hong Kong government said Tuesday, as the country confirmed its fourth outbreak of bird flu among poultry this year. (CHINA) |
Tue Feb 26, 12:14 AM ET Chicken are seen at a market in Ha Tay Province, Vietnam Jan. 23, 2008. Bird flu killed a school teacher from northern Vietnam in the country's 51st death from the disease, and health officials fretted Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008, that the virus would spread further. (AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki) (VIETNAM) |
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Tue Feb 26, 1:18 PM ET Pelikans in Senegal's Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary, located in the River Delta. A new pan-African initiative to combat bird flu was launched Tuesday in Dakar, Senegal, in a breakthrough partnership between the African Union and the European Union. (AFP/File/Seyllou) (AFRICA) |
Tue Feb 26, 11:18 PM ET Medical sleuths probing a cold case involving one of the deadliest killers in history, the 1918 flu, report that they have edged closer to understanding what it takes to turn ordinary bird flu virus into a mass murderer. (BIRD FLU PANDEMIC) (CDC)
Genes shed light on cause of 1918 flu pandemicThe question carries more than scientific significance, with new versions of flu viruses turning up all the time. One of them, H5N1, has sickened millions of birds and killed nearly 400 people in more than a dozen countries worldwide since 2003, according to the World Health Organization. "The big question is, "What does H5N1 need to spread globally?' We don't know anything about that," says Terrence Tumpey of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who pioneered the research and took part in two new studies. "We don't even know what seasonal flu needs to spread." |
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Wed Feb 27, 2:02 PM ET A vendor carries chickens at a poultry market in Guangzhou, Guangdong province February 25, 2008. All three Chinese who died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu this year had contact with sick poultry, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday, adding there was no evidence of transmission between humans. REUTERS/Stringer (CHINA) |
Wed Feb 27, 5:03 PM ET Several strains of H5N1 bird flu virus that afflicted southern China were blocked from entering neighboring Thailand and Vietnam, say University of California, Irvine, researchers who conducted the first-ever statistical analysis of H5N1's genetic diversity.
Some Countries May Have Slowed Bird Flu's Spread
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Wed Feb 27, 7:30 PM ET India is to be commended for its successful efforts to control the recent worst-ever outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza in the state of West Bengal, FAO said today. The agency warned, however, that intensive surveillance should continue in high-risk areas as the possibility of new outbreaks remains high. (INDIA) (FAO)
Bird flu could strike again in India, FAO warns
"The political and financial commitment from the government of India and the state of Bengal to stamp out the disease was instrumental in this success. Public awareness campaigns, a strong command chain from districts to villages, compensation payments and an effective collaboration between animal and human health departments at field level, have been the key factors for the success," Oberoi said. |
