(CIDRAP News) An agreement between US security and health agencies to share more data about travelers in order to keep infectious diseases out of the country has drawn criticism.
(CIDRAP News) The World Health Organization (WHO) today recognized eight human cases of H5N1 avian influenza previously reported in Egypt, pushing the global case count to 204, with 113 deaths.
The Egyptian government has been reporting a total of 12 human cases, but until today the WHO had listed only 4 cases in Egypt.
(CIDRAP News) Under a schedule laid out yesterday by federal agriculture officials, a nationwide livestock identification system to help in the investigation and control of animal disease outbreaks will be fully operational by 2009.
(CIDRAP News) H5N1 virus has been found in wild birds in yet another European country, Slovakia, while tests of samples from 95 people in India have revealed no cases of avian influenza so far, according to reports today.
(CIDRAP News) Minnesota cattlemen are facing an economic blow from a once-banished nemesis: bovine tuberculosis.
The Minnesota Board of Animal Health (BAH) announced on Dec 8 that the USDA would drop the state's TB status a notch, from TB-free to "Modified Accredited Advanced." The reduction in status took effect Jan 30.
(CIDRAP News) Canadian officials said yesterday they would destroy all the poultry on a British Columbia farm where a duck was found to be carrying a low-pathogenic H5 avian influenza virus.
That announcement came 2 days after the Canadian government reported the identification of a low-pathogenic strain of H5N1 virus in wild birds in Manitoba and other flu viruses in wild birds in British Columbia and Quebec.
(CIDRAP News) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has no current plans to release the reconstructed version of the virus that caused the 1918 influenza pandemic to other laboratories, the head of the CDC said yesterday, but she did not rule out the possibility.
(CIDRAP News) The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said yesterday it would set up a team to "kick start" avian influenza control efforts in Indonesia, which has been criticized for its response to the disease.
(CIDRAP News) The avian influenza virus long established in Southeast Asia has reached Europe's doorstep, with confirmation today that a lethal virus in Turkey is H5N1 and that an H5 strain in Romania is still being subtyped.
(CIDRAP News) Scientists today reported findings that may help explain what made the 1918 pandemic influenza virus so deadly and that reveal similarities between that virus and the H5N1 avian influenza virus now circulating in Asia.