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Cats could hold key to spread of avian flu virus By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 13/06/2006) Cats should become a new focus of efforts to understand and prevent the spread of avian flu, according to government advisers. In a review of the science underpinning the contingency plans drawn up by the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra), Prof Jeffrey Waage, a member of Defra's Science Advisory Group's Epidemic Diseases sub-group, said: "The ability of mammals to contract and transmit the avian influenza virus has important human health implications. "We know about cats as a potential host for...

In the wake of a cluster of avian flu cases that killed seven members of a rural Indonesian family, it appears likely that there have been many more human-to-human infections than the authorities have previously acknowledged. The numbers are still relatively small, and they do not mean that the virus has mutated to pass easily between people — a change that could touch off a worldwide epidemic. All the clusters of cases have been among relatives or in nurses who were in long, close contact with patients. But the clusters — in Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iraq and Vietnam —...

ROME - The U.N. food agency said Thursday it is considering a plan to fit wild birds with tiny backpacks and monitor their annual migrations to help combat the spread of the deadly H5N1 bird flu. The project would rely on communications satellites and a network of computers to track the birds' movements, and would cost $6.8 million, the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization said in a statement. "All we have now is a snapshot. We need to see the whole film," said Joseph Domenech, the organization's chief veterinary officer. Evidence on the role of wild birds is not always...

May 17, 2006 (CIDRAP News) – World Health Organization officials have confirmed five cases of H5N1 avian influenza in an Indonesian family in North Sumatra, plus a fatal case in a woman from East Java, news services reported today. Additionally, Indonesia's health ministry said local tests revealed the H5N1 strain in a 12-year-old Jakarta boy who died 4 days ago, according to a Reuters report. This case, however, has yet to be confirmed by the WHO. The North Sumatra case cluster was first reported by Indonesian officials several days ago, sparking concern about the possibility of person-to-person transmission. In today's...

Bird-flu cases have dropped sharply in Europe and have not caused the human calamity expected in Africa, health officials report. Meanwhile, Vietnam, which has the world's largest death toll from avian influenza at 42, has been free of the disease in both people and poultry all this year. Thailand, which has had 14 deaths from avian flu, has not had a human case since mid-2005, nor one in poultry in six months, according to the United Nations.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/conditions/05/13/indonesia.birdflu/index.html?section=cnn_latest Indonesia probes possible bird flu Four of eight cases investigated were fatal (snipped) Saturday, May 13, 2006; Posted: 1:24 a.m. EDT (05:24 GMT) All eight cases were from the same family. Four members of the family have died from what health officials suspect could be bird flu, said WHO spokeswoman Sari Setiogi. . . Health officials closely study such groups of cases, know as "clusters," to see whether the virus, which currently is almost always transmitted from birds to humans, has mutated into one that can easily pass between humans -- a scenario that many fear could turn into...

Tuesday, May 9 at 8/7c To date, there have been no cases of the H5N1 virus in the United States nor has there been a human transmission of the disease in a form that could fuel a pandemic. However, experts around the world are monitoring the Avian Flu situation closely and are preparing for the possibility that the virus could begin to spread from person to person. For information on the virus log onto pandemicflu.gov. There are times that test humanity and challenge the soul of a community or a nation. News images and headlines tell stories of rising waters,...

Pick up a newspaper, turn on the TV and it’s there: the news about avian flu. It can be alarming sometimes, often confusing. And nearly everyone has the same question: Could it happen here? In 1996, a new and particularly deadly strain of avian flu was found in a goose in China. It was found a year later in Hong Kong and six people died from the virus. They were the first known human cases.

Avian flu: wild birds, pets and poultry now at risk More swans tested amid fears deadly virus will spread across UK Sandra Laville and Ian Sample Friday April 7, 2006 The Guardian (UK) The lethal avian flu virus found in a swan in Scotland is almost certain to spread to wild birds across the UK before threatening Britain's poultry industry, experts warned yesterday. Their prediction came as a further 14 swans were being tested for the deadly H5N1 virus that scientists yesterday confirmed had killed the mute swan found in the village of Cellardyke in Fife. The investigation has now...

Avian flu kills swan in Scotland By Anil Dawar (Filed: 06/04/2006) A wild swan has been found dead from avian flu in Scotland. Preliminary tests found "highly pathogenic H5 avian flu" in a sample from the bird, the Scottish Executive said. The bird was found near the coast in an emaciated condition, about nine miles from St Andrews, in Fife. A two-mile exclusion zone was set up around Cellardyke while scientists continued to examine the bird to discover if it was carrying the H5N1 strain of the virus, which can be fatal to humans. Poultry farmers and bird owners in...

Palestinian officials confirmed an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu at a second farm in the Gaza Strip on Friday, and Israel's foreign minister appealed to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan for international assistance to the Palestinians to contain the disease. In all, bird flu has been detected at two farms in the Gaza Strip, one near Gaza City and one near the southern town of Rafah on the border with Egypt, said Deputy Agriculture Minister Azzam Tubaili. Gaza chicken farmers planned a protest later Friday, after government officials told them they would not be compensated for...

This is a website with a number of ongoing live threads on H5N1. Some have higher signal-to-noise than others. H5N1 Avian Flu Forum

Source: JAMA and Archives Journals Date: 2006-01-19 Avian Flu Transmission To Humans May Be Higher Than Thought A new study suggests that there is an association between direct contact with dead or sick poultry and flu-like illness in humans and that the transmission is probably more common than expected, according to a new study in the January 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Anna Thorson, M.D., Ph.D., from the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues analyzed data from household interviews conducted in FilaBavi, a Vietnamese demographic surveillance site in Bavi district, northwest Vietnam, with...

1,300-1,500 Geese Die at Bald Knob National Wildlife Refuge, Arkansas -- Avian Cholera is Suspected Cause FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 11, 2006 Contacts: Tom MacKenzie, 404-679-7291 Dennis Widner, 870-347-2614 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials announced today that 1,300-1,500 snow geese and Ross’ geese have died in a suspected avian cholera outbreak at Bald Knob National Wildlife Refuge. Refuge biologists discovered sick and dead birds on Monday, Jan 9, 2006 at the remote refuge 60 miles northeast of Little Rock, Ark. Dennis Widner, Project Leader for the refuge complex that includes Bald Knob National Wildlife Refuge, immediately contacted the U.S....

For the past few months, teams of people in the world's banks and insurance companies have been working hard to make sure they are prepared for the possibility of a widespread outbreak of avian flu. These institutions hope they will never have to activate their plans, which are detailed and extensive. Even so, urged on by regulators and organisations such as the World Health Organisation, they are trying to make sure they are prepared to deal with an outbreak that could affect a significant proportion of their employees and will test their ability to manage their business when staff are...

Bird migration tracker to help fight avian flu By Mike Pflanz (Filed: 21/11/2005) A bird flu early warning system which will track migration routes of potentially infected birds and alert countries where they are heading was announced yesterday. The system will gather data currently scattered across the world's universities, conservation bodies and wildlife groups into one central computer. The alert system will give a crucial warning of impending danger The data base, which is expected to take two years to become operational, will be constantly monitored and updated by global experts studying migratory species. Special maps will be drawn up...

TORONTO (CP) - The Canadian Press has learned wild ducks in Manitoba have tested positive for H5-N1 avian flu viruses, but not the dangerous form of the virus circulating in Southeast Asia. The findings will be reported by federal officials at a news conference Saturday afternoon. A source confirmed that H5-N1 viruses were isolated from two ducks as part of a cross-country surveillance program to find what avian flu viruses are being carried by wild ducks in this country. The viruses are not considered a threat to human health. The source says the there is no "new threat to...

ST PETERSBURG, November 14 (RIA Novosti, Olga Vtorova) - Current tests suggest that a vaccine to prevent bird flu could be industrially produced by February or March of next year, the director of the Russian Flu Research Center said Monday. Oleg Kiselyov said the strain of the virus obtained by reverse genetics (the process of introducing mutations into a cloned DNA segment to investigate gene function) using a Vietnamese avian flu isolate and the vaccine testing program developed by the Flu Research Center, have been passed on to the Tarasevich State Monitoring Institute. "To conclude this work effectively and obtain...

In 1918, the manmade carnage of the final year of World War I was dwarfed by the lethal impact of a microscopic virus. Estimates put the combat death toll from the war at some 10 million after four years of fighting. But the worldwide outbreak of Spanish flu in 1918-19 killed some 40 million people, according to the World Health Organization. The next great flu outbreak is likely to be a lot worse than that, scientists fear. And they say it could be right around the corner. The flu strain giving health experts nightmares has the scientific designation H5N1, but...

"THE INDICATION IS THAT we will see a return of the 1918 flu virus that is the most virulent form of flu," warns America's top health official. "In 1918, half a million people died. The projections are that this virus will kill one million Americans . . . " A quotation ripped from today's papers about an impending "bird flu" pandemic? No, the year was 1976 and the prediction of a deadly "swine flu" overshot the mark by 999,999 deaths (although dozens did die from the vaccine campaign). That's something to remember amid the current alarms. Another is that we've...