| Japan Investigating Poultry Farm for Possible Bird Flu
Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry is investigating whether dead chickens at a poultry farm in the southern prefecture of Miyazaki were infected with bird flu. The ministry will isolate all other birds on the farm and will ask other poultry farms within a 10-kilometer (6-mile) radius not to move their produce until the investigation is finished. The farm has 12,000 birds, the ministry said yesterday. Infections in birds and people are increasing in Asia, where the virus was first identified a decade ago. South Korea reported its first avian outbreaks since March 2004 last month, and today reported an infected person who showed no symptoms. Disease trackers are looking for signs that H5N1 is changing to become more adept at infecting humans, which could start a pandemic.
Bird flu makes a return in Indonesia
Bird flu has made a comeback in Nigeria and Japan and killed another person in Indonesia, perhaps revived by winter, experts said. The H5N1 avian flu virus had continued to infect flocks in Indonesia and attacked the occasional person, but alarming headlines about its spread had died down in recent months. "The transmission seems to be on the increase now," Dr David Nabarro, bird flu coordinator for the United Nations, told Reuters in an interview. "There is a pattern of seasonal increases in transmission in the months December through April over the past few years." An official at a Jakarta hospital said a woman had died of bird flu and four people were being treated for symptoms for the H5N1 virus, which many scientists fear could mutate and trigger the next influenza pandemic in people.
Bird flu will challenge to US health system, expert predicts
BALTIMORE, Maryland (Reuters) -- A bird flu pandemic remains a threat that the U.S. health care system must take seriously despite less frequent media coverage and the absence so far of human cases in the United States, experts warned. John Bartlett, an infectious disease expert at John Hopkins University, said the decentralized U.S. health system will make it more difficult to get ready for a possible human pandemic of H5N1 avian virus -- or anything else. He disagreed with the suggestion that the bird flu threat has been overstated by the media. "The number of cases in 2006 was more than it was in 2005, which is more than it was in 2004 ... so it continues to go up in people," he said in an interview. "And it continues to be just as lethal as it was in the beginning," Bartlett said at a conference aimed at helping U.S.
Bird Flu Kills 59th Indonesian; Japan Probes Suspected Outbreak
Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Bird flu killed a 37-year-old woman in Indonesia and may have infected hundreds of poultry in Japan as the lethal virus resurfaces across Asia. The woman's death late yesterday brings to 59 the number of fatalities from the H5N1 avian influenza virus in Indonesia, Runizar Ruesin, a Health Ministry official, said in a mobile phone text message today. Japan's farm ministry suspects the virus killed poultry on a farm on the southern island of Kyushu. The new infections provide chances for H5N1 to mutate into a form more dangerous to people. Millions could die if it mutates and begins spreading easily between people, sparking a pandemic. South Korea, Vietnam and Nigeria had fresh poultry outbreaks last month, while China and Egypt found human cases.
Public still has concern over spread of bird flu
After several years of various studies, programs and experiments, the most recent strain of avian flu, H5N1, is still causing concern all over the world. According to Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a "2006 Guide to Survive Bird Flu" was published … although no one in the United States has been diagnosed with this strain (H5N1) of flu. While the U.S. Congress allocated $3.8 billion, last year, in case of a bird flu pandemic, it has not been necessary for citizens to panic, nor has a new vaccine been identified for this strain. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, as of late November, there had been 111 human cases of the H5N1 flu strain all over the world.
Bird Flu Kills Indonesian, May Have Returned to Japan (Update3)
Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Bird flu killed a 37-year-old woman in Indonesia and may have infected hundreds of poultry in Japan as the lethal virus resurfaces across Asia. The woman's death late yesterday brings to 59 the number of fatalities from the H5N1 avian influenza virus in Indonesia, Runizar Ruesin, a Health Ministry official, said in a mobile phone text message today. Japan's farm ministry suspects the virus killed poultry on a farm on the southern island of Kyushu. The new infections provide chances for H5N1 to mutate into a form more dangerous to people. Millions could die if it mutates and begins spreading easily between people, sparking a pandemic. South Korea, Vietnam and Nigeria had fresh poultry outbreaks last month, while China and Egypt found human cases.
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