In impressive action, Vietnam, once the main spot for the bird flu, has temporarily stamped out the avian flu: no people have been infected since November, and no poultry outbreaks since December.

The poor communist nation says it has accomplished this feat by –>vaccinating millions of chickens and ducks, slaughtering millions more, by being honest with international health officials, and by educating the citizens of Vietnam.

If the bird-flu pandemic hits the United States, it may start in California and spread across the country in just two to four weeks.
Normally a flu takes 5 - 7 weeks to spread, with a pandemic the time often may run through much quicker in the 2 - 4 week range.
And the best way to slow its spread would be to have workers stay at home. Normally it is said that children at school spread the flu by bringing it home. This new thought is saying adults at work actually help the spread of flu, thus the recommendation to stay home from work.

Tags: bird-flu, birdflu, avian flu, pandemic, stay home

Pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline PLC said Thursday that it has begun international clinical trials of two pandemic vaccines for the bird flu.

Glaxo said that preliminary results –>from the trials would be available in the third quarter — supporting its plan to begin production later this year.

Researchers have claimed only partial success this Thursday in the largest human trial of an avian flu vaccine.
They showed the vaccine is safe and generates what appears to be a protective immune response. But it works only half the time and only when given in a total dose that is 12 times the amount used in seasonal flu vaccine, study leader John Treanor of the University of Rochester says.

“Every journey starts with the first step,” Treanor says, saying researchers hope to use chemicals called adjuvants to boost the vaccine’s effectiveness.

Tags: bird flu vaccine, vaccine, avian flu vaccine

Indonesia has recorded another bird flu death here, after a test confirmed a one-year old baby girl who died on Thursday in Jakarta was positive for the avian influenza virus, director at the health ministry said.

“The baby is positive, according to our local test,” Director Hariadi Wibisono told Xinhua.

It was not clear whether the baby (more…)

Washington – The United States and Canada are working closely to keep watch for the introduction of highly pathogenic avian influenza into North America, according to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton.

With the rapid movement of this dangerous bird flu virus across Central Asia, Europe and into Africa over the last few months, U.S. officials have come to accept that the appearance of the H5N1 virus in North America is inevitable. (more…)

An Iraqi man died from the suspected deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in Baghdad, while another member of his family has been admitted for tests on bird flu suspicions, a spokeswoman of the committee to fight bird flu set up by the Iraqi government said.

The member of the family has been admitted to a hospital in Kamaliya neighbhourhood of east Baghdad, the spokeswoman said, adding that samples of the two have been sent to Cairo for further analysis. (more…)