Bird Flu - Avian Influenza - news - information

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Indonesian Man Dies of Bird Flu (Brings total to 101)

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A 32-year-old man died of bird flu in Indonesia’s capital, lifting the toll in the country hardest hit by the virus to 101.

One of the victim’s neighbors was a pigeon breeder, but it was not immediately clear if that was the source of infection, said Health Ministry official Toto Haryanto.

“We’re still investigating,” he said. “We are not sure if any of those birds was sickened by the H5N1 virus.”

The man, who came from the nearby industrial city of Tangerang, died Tuesday after being treated for three days at Persahabatan Hospital in east Jakarta, said Dr. Erna Tresnaningsih, another senior ministry official.

Indonesia has regularly tallied human deaths from bird flu since the virus began ravaging poultry stocks across Asia in 2003. The latest casualty comes days after the country’s toll climbed to 100 — accounting for nearly half the worldwide total of more than 220.

As of Wednesday, 101 Indonesians had died and 23 others had been infected but recovered.

Bird flu story source: AP

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Birds culled in Saudi as new bird flu case found

RIYADH, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Saudi authorities have culled nearly 160,000 birds after a new case of the deadly strain of bird flu was found on a farm outside Riyadh, state media said on Tuesday.

The Saudi Press Agency said 158,000 birds were exterminated at al-Kharj, 150 km (94 miles) south of the capital, after the H5N1 strain of bird flu was found there.

The Saudi government says it has large stocks of Tamiflu anti-flu

avian flu story source: Reuters

China reports bird flu outbreak in poultry in Tibet

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has detected an outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu in poultry in Tibet, a government Web site said on Tuesday.

A total of 1,000 poultry have died of the disease in Gonggan county since January 25, while another 13,080 have been culled, the Ministry of Agriculture said on its Web site (http://www.agri.gov.cn).

“The National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory confirmed the virus as a subtype of the H5N1 strain,” it said.

Source for this bird flu story: Reuters

Monday, January 28, 2008

Bangladesh plans house-to-house bird flu search

DHAKA (AFP) — Bangladeshi authorities are to start house-to-house surveillance in their latest effort to stem a worsening outbreak of bird flu, an official said Monday.

The country’s emergency government said the spread of avian flu, which has hit half the country, has become “alarming.”

Three more districts reported outbreaks at the weekend, and wild birds have also been dropping dead.

“We are going to search house to house and bring each of more than 150,000 poultry farms under our active surveillance to prevent the spread,” government spokesman Salahuddin Khan said.

“We’re not panicked. But we have stepped up our action programme for greater public safety,” Khan said.

Officials said the situation in the impoverished country of 144 million was so wide in scope that even wild crows had been infected.

“It is an alarming situation. Hundreds of crows have died across the country due to the bird flu. Laboratory tests have confirmed that the crows died of H5N1 strain of the bird flu,” a government science advisor said on Sunday.

“Farmers in some villages are throwing away dead chickens in canals and ponds, spreading the disease without knowing it. The government should make it an emergency health issue,” added the official, who asked not to be named.

Avian flu story source: AFP

Indonesia Reports 100th Bird Flu Death

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia, the nation hardest hit by bird flu, has recorded its 100th human death as the virus picks up speed across Asia.

Health officials are bracing for more possible outbreaks during the upcoming Lunar New Year, when massive numbers of people and poultry are on the move.

In Indonesia, the H5N1 bird flu virus killed a 9-year-old boy and a 20-year-old woman from the outskirts of Jakarta, said Joko Suyono of the National Bird Flu Center.

The boy fell ill Jan. 16 and died Sunday in Jakarta after testing positive, Suyono said. The woman developed symptoms Jan. 19 and died in a hospital.

Two other Indonesians in their 30s, who also tested positive, were being treated in the capital, Suyono said.

Bird flu story source: AP

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Sixth swan tests positive for H5N1 bird flu

LONDON (Reuters) - A sixth swan in southern England has tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, the farm ministry said on Saturday.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said in a statement that the swan was found in the same area as five previous cases.

“This is not unexpected and our enhanced surveillance of wild birds in the area is continuing including active patrols to look for dead wild birds,” DEFRA said.

“There is currently no evidence to suggest widespread disease in the wild bird population and there remains no evidence of disease in domestic birds.”

On January 10, the ministry said three wild swans in a bird sanctuary in Dorset had died from the virus.

Source for this bird flu story: Reuters

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Experts probe high bird flu mortality rate in Indonesia

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Medical experts are worried about how death rates for H5N1 bird flu have shot up in places like Indonesia, and studies are being carried out to see if victims require higher dosages of drugs.

Although the H5N1 has only infected 352 people since 2003, it has killed 219 of them, with mortality rates rising to more than 80 percent in places like Indonesia in the past two years.

“It could be they are treated later, or the virus is different, more virulent. There are many maybes, including differences in susceptibility of the virus,” Menno de Jong, a doctor who has treated bird flu victims in Vietnam, told Reuters on the sidelines of a bird flu conference in Bangkok.

He said a major concern was the H5N1 variant in Indonesia appeared to be less susceptible to oseltamivir, the antiviral used to combat the disease.

“It’s not a (drug) resistant virus, it’s just that a bit more drug (may be) needed to inhibit these (H5N1) clade 2 viruses,” he said, referring to the sub-category that Indonesia’s H5N1 virus has been classified under.

Studies are being conducted in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia to see if H5N1 patients need to be given higher dosages of oseltamivir.

Bird flu story source: Reuters

Indonesian man dies of bird flu, toll up to 98

JAKARTA, Jan 24 (Reuters) - A 30-year-old Indonesian man who had tested positive for bird flu died on Thursday, the health ministry said, taking the country’s death toll from the virus to 98.

The man, from Tangerang west of Jakarta, died at the Persahabatan hospital after being treated for a week, said Sunan Raja, an official at the ministry’s bird flu information center.

It was not known how the man contracted the disease.

Source for bird flu story: Reuters

Admin’s Note: The is an update to the following story Indonesian man infected with bird flu brings country’s total to 120(confirmed infections)

Bird flu strikes again in northern Thailand

BANGKOK, Jan 24 (Reuters) - The H5N1 bird flu virus has re-emerged in a northern Thai province for the first time since March last year, forcing the slaughter of 10,000 chickens, an Agriculture Ministry official said on Thursday.

The outbreak occurred on a farm in Nakhon Sawan, 240 km (149 miles) north of Bangkok, where the owner reported 4,085 chickens had died earlier this month, senior Livestock Department official Nirundorn Aungtragoolsuk told Reuters.

“The H5N1 virus was found on the farm and we have culled the rest of them,” he said of the birds slaughtered in one of four closed chicken houses on the farm.

The others house 45,000 chickens which had shown no signs of the deadly avian influenza virus, he said.

Avian influenza story source: Reuters

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

India’s Avian Flu Outbreak Is `Serious,’ WHO Says- (new outbreaks)

Jan. 23 (Bloomberg)—An outbreak of avian flu in India’s West Bengal state is ``serious’’ and the virus has spread rapidly to many districts, the World Health Organization’s representative said.

The outbreak is the 10th in India since the H5N1 avian influenza virus was first reported to have killed poultry there in February 2006. No human cases have been recorded in India.

India has the capacity to handle the situation as the ``fundamentals of planning are sound,’’ S.J. Habayeb, the organization’s representative in the South Asian nation, said in an interview conducted over e-mail.

The disease has spread to more districts in West Bengal, taking the total number to nine, Farm Minister Sharad Pawar said in New Delhi today. ``We are trying to control the situation.’’

The government has culled 242,000 chickens since the disease was reported among poultry Jan. 15 in the eastern state, the agriculture ministry has said.

As many as 113,796 chickens have died from the virus, the ministry said in a release. Samples from six districts have tested negative. About 258 teams have been deployed for culling and surveillance operations in West Bengal, the ministry added.

`Backyard Culling’

``The main problem we are facing is culling in the backyards,’’ Anisur Rahman, West Bengal’s animal resources minister, said in a telephone interview from the state capital of Kolkata, also known as Calcutta. ``In other places, where the disease was reported, the farmers carried their poultry to a central farm in a village. Here, volunteers have to go to each house and convince farmers to do the culling.’’

The teams, working in the villages, have gone up from 400 to 650 today, Rahman said.

``Culling is going on at a rapid pace,’’ he said. ``At the same time, we are faced with a situation where poultry is being tested positive from new areas which are far-flung.’’

Bird flu story source: Bloomberg News