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Bangkok Post, Thailand - 7 hours ago
New bird flu outbreak in Northeast

Nakhon Phanom (TNA)
More than 300,000 egg- producing hens in Thailand's northeast Nakhon Phanom province bordering Laos are to be culled Sunday after bird flu was confirmed in the province, according to Deputy Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Adisorn Piengkes.

The laboratory tests conducted on over 2,000 layers which died mysteriously in the Mekong River province of Nakhon Phanom July 24 to 26 found that the fowl were infected with H5N1 virus.

To prevent a further outbreak, more than 300,000 chickens in 78 farms here must be slaughtered within 24 hours, Mr Adisorn said, after inspecting the outbreak.
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Currently there are 113 suspected cases of people suffering symptoms similar to bird flu in seven Thai provinces, but health authorities are awaiting laboratory tests to confirm whether the patients have indeed contacted H5N1.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=111888
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Door-to-door effort turning up new bird-flu cases in Indonesia (The Columbus Dispatch)

July 30, 2006 06:01:22 am

http://www.dispatch.com/health/health.php?story=dispatch/2006/07/30/20060730-A15-00.html
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LONDON, England (CNN) -- A British company announced this week that it has developed the first effective small-dose bird flu vaccine.

In a clinical trial of the H5N1 vaccine conducted by London-based GlaxoSmithKline, the company found that 80 percent of the 400 adults studied showed a good immune response to the vaccine when it was it was given with doses of only 3.8 micrograms of antigen.

"These clinical trial results represent a significant breakthrough in the development of our pandemic flu vaccine," Dr. Jean-Pierre Garnier, the company's chief executive officer, said Wednesday. "This is the first time such a low dose of H5N1 antigen has been able to stimulate this level of strong immune response."

According the company, previous candidate vaccines have only proven effective when given with high quantities of antigen, the active ingredient that triggers an immune response.

The company hopes to make regulatory filings for the vaccine in the coming months, but it's unclear how soon the vaccine would be available to the general public.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/07/28/bird.flu.vaccine/index.html?section=cnn_health