Pandemics

Abuja -- 13 August 2008 -- Animal health specialists warn a new strain of highly pathogenic bird flu in Nigeria - which has previously not been recorded in sub-Saharan Africa - increases the risk of avian influenza spreading to other countries in West Africa.

Nigeria's bird flu officials blame infected migratory birds from Europe or Central Asia for the spread of the new strain of H5N1 to the country.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization says the newly discovered virus strain is genetically different from the strain that circulated in Nigeria in 2006 and 2007.

The U.N. food agency says the new strain is similar to ones previously identified in Italy, Afghanistan and Iran, last year.    » read more »

Seasonal influenza strains constantly evolve in overlapping epidemics in Asia and sweep the rest of the world each year, according to an international research team publishing in the 18 April issue of the journal Science.

The findings suggest that by focusing surveillance efforts on East and Southeast Asia, researchers may be able to extend their forecast of the flu strains most likely to cause epidemics, which may in turn help experts decide which strains should go in the flu vaccine each year.

Influenza virus: Photo by CDC    » read more »

Novel Project Could Help Thwart Worldwide Influenza Threat

LA JOLLA, CA, April 14, 2008—An international group of American and Turkish research scientists, led by Sea Lane Biotechnologies, has created the first comprehensive monoclonal antibody libraries against avian influenza (H5N1) using samples from survivors of the 2005/2006 "bird flu" outbreak in Turkey.

H5N1 virus    » read more »

08 April 2008 -- 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.

H5N1 virions: Photo Credit: Cynthia Goldsmith / Jackie Katz / CDC

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.    » read more »

20-03-2008 -- Geneva (ICRC) – Despite international efforts to curb tuberculosis, this infectious disease is on the rise.

Prisons have to be at the centre of national TB control programmes, as they are a breeding ground for tuberculosis, and particularly for drug-resistant forms of the disease, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes TB infection, as seen through electron microscope    » read more »

15 January 2008 -- Indian health officials have confirmed that an outbreak of bird flu in the eastern part of the country, near Bangladesh, is the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus.

The new outbreak has already killed about 35,000 birds in the state of West Bengal. The state's minister for animal resources, Anisur Rahaman, Tuesday said the poultry deaths were reported from farms in the Morgram village in the Birbhum District, and in south Dinajpur.    » read more »

15 January 2008 -- Officials in Indonesia say another person has died from bird flu, bringing the country's death toll from the disease to 96 since the outbreak started in 2003.

The latest victim was a 16-year-old girl from the town of Bekasi, on the eastern outskirts of Jakarta. Officials say she died Tuesday.

Monday, officials reported that a 32-year-old woman from an area just west of Jakarta died of bird flu last week, at her home in the city of Tangerang. A statement from the health ministry said the woman's family kept chickens in their backyard.    » read more »