22/09/06

Bird flu update: 25 September 2006

A Vietnamese farmer brings his chickens to be vaccinated against bird flu Copyright: FAO / H. D. Nam

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Below is a roundup of the key developments on the spread of the bird flu virus (H5N1) and the threat it poses to human health. Each title is a link to the full article.


Click here to see the latest World Health Organization (WHO) figures of confirmed human cases.

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Sunday 24 September 2006
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Indonesian boy dies of bird flu
A nine-year-old Indonesian boy has died of bird flu according to the ministry of health (Source: Reuters).


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Saturday 23 September 2006
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West Bank and Gaza get US$13 million to fight bird flu
The World Bank said it has approved a US$13 million grant to reduce avian influenza threats on poultry in the West Bank and Gaza (Source: International Business Times).


Bird flu may strike China this winter say experts
Top influenza scientists warned of the possibility of a major bird flu outbreak in China this winter or next spring (Source: China Daily).


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Friday 22 September 2006
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Boy is Indonesia’s 50th bird flu casualty
An 11-year-old Indonesian boy has died of bird flu at a hospital in Tulungagung in East Java province, the health ministry said, taking the country’s bird flu death toll to 50 (Source: Reuters).


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Thursday 21 September 2006
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Donors to help Nigeria look for bird flu outbreaks
In a new project launched by the European Union and the UN, 200 health workers will fan out across Nigeria over the next six months to look for cases of avian influenza (Source: Reuters).


Institutes to supervise bird flu in South-East Asia
Health institutes in Cambodia, China, France, Laos and Vietnam will start a four-year, US$7.6 million bird flu surveillance project later this year, exchanging bird flu data and specimens and reinforcing labs and national disease response networks (Source: Xinhua).


Bird flu has cost Indonesian poultry business US$1.4 billion
Indonesia’s poultry industry has suffered a loss of at least US$1.4 billion since bird flu was confirmed there in 2004 (Source: Xinhua).


Bangladesh draws up bird flu action plan
Bangladesh has developed a framework for a national communication strategy and action plan to prevent an outbreak of bird flu in the country (Source: United News of Bangladesh).


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Wednesday 20 September 2006
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Global community ‘not sharing enough of bird flu burden’
The international community is not bearing enough of the burden of combating avian flu, leaving too much of the work to some of the world’s poorer countries, said the US Centers for Disease Control (Source: Canadian Press).


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Tuesday 19 September 2006
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US funds Laos, Vietnam fight against bird flu
The US government is providing US$1.55 million for a new project to tackle bird flu in Laos and Vietnam in collaboration with the UN (Source: US Embassy in Vietnam).


WHO confirms Iraq’s third avian flu case
The WHO has retrospectively recognised Iraq’s third human case of H5N1: a three-year-old boy who was hospitalised with a mild illness in March and later recovered (Source: CIDRAP News).


WHO chief says bird flu funds still needed
The WHO still lacks half the funds it needs to help countries fight bird flu, the acting director-general said (Source: Associated Press).


Sanofi starts first clinical trial of H7N1 vaccine
Sanofi Pasteur has started the first clinical trial of a new generation of H7N1 vaccine to fight against bird flu; some say this flu virus also poses a pandemic threat (Source: Xinhua).


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Monday 18 September 2006
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WHO hopes bird flu will do less harm this winter
The risk of a flu pandemic remains high despite possible public fatigue with the issue, a WHO official said, but the organisation is hopeful the virus will do less damage than in past years during Asia’s upcoming colder months (Source: Associated Press).


Vietnamese police widen investigation into bird flu scam
Police in southern Vietnam are widening an investigation into a scam in which tens of thousands of dollars in government funds earmarked to fight bird flu may have been misappropriated (Source: Associated Press).


Rwanda hosts bird flu regional workshop
Veterinarians from eleven African countries met in Rwanda for one week of training on how to fight the spread of bird flu in the region (Source: The New Times).