Monday, March 31, 2008

March 30 Flu Update

Temperature goes up, bird flu goes down in Bangladesh.

Vietnam is importing bird flu (avian) vaccine from China.

Interview with flu expert who has been saying the bird flu can be stopped with good surveillance.

Revere blogs this article in an excellent post. Key words: "Trust is not transitive."

Yi Guan is a genuine expert in the virology of H5N1 and an expert in the Art of Surveillance as we now practice it. Surveillance is of supreme importance in global preparation to face a potential pandemic with a very dangerous virus. But just because it is his opinion that the hammer he wields will hit all the nails on the head doesn't mean that a good hammer is even close to being a sufficient tool even under the best of circumstances.


In Vietnam, they're calling on district leaders to get tougher on poultry smuggling.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

On the road...

No publication until Monday.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

March 25 Flu Update

Excellent story on the disappearing poultry in Egypt.

In India, four workers are under bird flu observation. These are almost always nothing. On the other hand, when it starts, this could easily be what we see.


Culling is said to be almost done in West Bengal.

Vietnam says five provinces are still showing signs of bird flu.

Vietnamese minister says bird flu risk in the Mekong Delta.

ProMed has this on the source of flu in Turkey, and other stories.

Turkish authorities have reported that the source of the recent outbreak of avian influenza in Ipsala/Edirne (Western Turkey) was "Fomites (humans, vehicles, feed, etc.)" (OIE-World Organization for Animal Health report 6907, report date: 18 Mar 2008). Ukraine has come to the same conclusion regarding the recent outbreaks in Crimea [see comment]. (OIE report 6909, report date: 19 Mar 2008).

The Gates Foundation has sent $1M to the University of Wisconsin to fight bird flu.

CIDRAP has the story from yesterday about mallards and spreading the flu. Note this:

High concentrations of ducks, rice fields, and human populations—rather than chickens—pose the highest risk of sparking deadly H5N1 avian influenza outbreaks in Southeast Asia, according to a recent study.

Minnesota Public Radio has this audio report on bird flu.

World Bank is sending $6M to Cambodia.

Revere blogs on the recent announcement from Germany that they are bird flu free, and the usual perverse reaction of the virus to seemingly strike any country that says that.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

March 25 Flu Update

The New York Times on one of the key questions of all...who will get ventilators during a pandemic.

But in an epidemic, there could be a severe shortage of machines and, more important, doctors and nurses to run them. At that point, the new report says, doctors and hospitals would have no choice but to start taking some people off the machines so that others could live.

Removal “is absolutely the crux of the problem,” said a lead author of the study, Dr. Tia Powell, who has spent much of her career studying medical ethics. “There are people who might survive who won’t get a chance at a ventilator if someone who is likely to die even with a vent is using it.”


Don McNeill of the New York Times also writes on what is going on in Indonesia.

The US is launching a flu stockpile in Thailand.

CIDRAP on the Asian stockpile, which makes some sense (especially if you believe in the containment strategy) and has been talked about for a long time.

Indonesia details bird flu losses in financial terms.

Apparently, another outbreak in West Bengal.

Outbreak in West Bengal continues to have impact.

CIDRAP on the recent flu exercise at CDC.

"What we recognize is that in the midst of a large event, there's a tyranny of the urgent that overcomes the groups, where there's a constant need to respond and react," Jernigan said. "And we felt it was vitally important to have a group of people that were removed from the constant pressure of the urgent so they could have a thoughtful approach to the development of policy on the fly."


Revere blogs on what is going on in Indonesia--once again, they are doing the right thing in the wrong way.

Germany says it is bird flu free. Who asked?

Orlando paper says we are overdue for a pandemic--likely a disaster.

Monday, March 24, 2008

March 24 Flu Update

Here we go again.....migratory birds, markets. Dutch scientists say that mallards may carry flu long distances.

Researchers at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam experimentally infected six wild-duck species with H5N1 to determine which were capable of excreting the virus without succumbing to the disease. Pochards and tufted ducks shed the most virus, though tend to become ill or die earlier, they said.

New chip tests for bird flu in people--lab on a chip.

Now, Indonesia will NOT share flu viruses in compliance with the world agreement...

A girl in Bangladesh died after eating chicken, and panic ensued.

Culls continue in Bangladesh.

Indonesia has stopped live bird markets in the capital to fight bird flu.

It is 32 years ago today that President Ford ordered the swine flu shots, an event which I believe will present a serious obstacle to any idea of pre-pandemic vaccines.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

March 23 Flu Update

Bird flu may have crossed over into Turkey....this is a sketchy report, however.

Easter Break.....


See you tomorrow. Happy Easter to all who celebrate it. To those of other faiths, let us all pray in our way for peace and renewal.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

March 21 Flu Update

Vietnam reports another outbreak.

Fresh outbreak in Malda.

Poultry traders avoid the restrictions....

China is stepping up the bird flu fight.

Farms in Greece are on high alert....

Voice of America reports that social distancing can work.

Bird flu meeting in Alabama talks preparedness.

Vietnam says that free range ducks are a huge risk.

Vietnam continues to talk up its human vaccine.

Speaking of vaccines, Revere blogs the flu patch...noting that even if we had a good flu vaccine, (and that is an if), how would we distribute it?

Friday, March 21, 2008

March 20 Flu Update

The culling zone in India has expanded.

This is interesting. One of the weaknesses of most H5N1 vaccines is that they require two doses to be effective, and, frankly, we're going to be hard pressed to get people to show up for one in a prepandemic situation. But, here's one that takes one shot, and a booster patch.


That bird flu in Turkey is near the Greek border.

ProMed on this outbreak, and a new one in Laos as well.

Ripple effect....as there is less poultry in India, then there is less need for poultry feed, and markets are affected.

Yet more wild allegations from the Indonesian Health Minister about how the US has used Indonesian flu vaccines.

As if in counterpoint, CIDRAP reports that the US has enough for vaccine for 13 million people and enough anti virals for 40 million people.

For the current US population estimate, click here.

Indonesia also dismisses the idea of virus reassortment.

Excellent New Statesman article on the drama playing out in West Bengal.

From an alert reader, the government knows has powerful software that models the US population and how diseases might spread.

Blog on Computerworld updates the computer world on why they should pay attention to Indonesia. This is actually a good read.

Also, an excellent Revere post on how not to deny rumors about flu cases, or, put another way, how you can be wrong even when you are right. For example:

Finally, the argument that the history of having been in Bangladesh is not relevant because there is no reported or confirmed human bird flu there is, at best, misleading. Almost everyone who knows about the situation there assumes there have been at least some cases. They just weren't recognized. Anyway, health officials are fond of saying, and the media dutifully repeats it, that almost all cases to date give a history of contact with sick poultry (even though it's not really true; a substantial fraction of cases have no such history), then it's irrelevant there are no human cases. There are a lot of birds dying from H5N1 in Bangladesh.

Prep work is ongoing in North Georgia, US.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

March 19 Flu Update

A genetic study says that China was the source of bird flu. Which historically, it has always been.

Well, it was probably all a big mix up. A couple from Bangladesh got sick, in Toronto, and next thing you know there are media reports its bird flu.

Inaccurate reporting is blamed.

UK PM Gordon Brown says the biggest threat is bird flu, not terror.

Revere blogs the recent description of the bird flu in Indonesia as "critical."

So far this bird flu season is looking a lot like previous ones. That's bad because previous seasons all were freighted with the potential for disaster. So is this one.

CIDRAP reports poultry outbreaks in Laos and Turkey.

Here's the OIE report from Turkey.

ProMed on the coinfection.

Culls are ongoing in India.

Loans are sought for poultry farms in Bangladesh.

France is subsidizing the bird flu fight in Africa.

Bali is making "maximum" effort to fight bird flu.

CIDRAP on the HHS flu exercise and the fact that it included how the Internet would be used and whether it would hold up.

Tufts has a grant to study bird flu in Indonesia.

In Nigeria, officials are challenging each other on bird flu.

Wow: Australia is going to require risky travellers to take medication. Let me know how that goes.

Central Java also releases bird flu warnings.

Islamabad is having a bird flu seminar.

March 18 Flu Update

Two very significant stories today...first, this one. An Indonesian girl was co-infected with bird and seasonal flu in 2007, the first reported occurrence. (CIDRAP)

"This is the first case-report of a human with both influenza A/H5N1 and H3N2 co-infection," the paper states. "Such infections are of great concern due to the possibility of genetic reassortment leading to the emergence of a H5N1 strain that is more easily transmitted human to human, and emphasizes the importance of advanced laboratory-based surveillance in geographic regions where both human and avian influenza viruses are co-circulating."


CIDRAP also reports that FAO says that the flu is so bad in Indonesia that it makes the conditions for mutation very good. Keyword: critical.


An International Conference urges people to look at the socioeconomic effects of bird flu...who owns those culled birds?


CIDRAP on the Indonesian boy who died (reported yesterday).

The bird flu quarantine was lifted in SW China.

Vietnam is now testing a human bird flu vaccine at their military academy.

West Bengal has put more money into flu control.

A USDA official is giving a talk in Palm Beach about bird flu.

Manitoba First Nations are meeting on flu prep.

Delaware continues bird flu surveillance.

Revere blogs on CDC pandemic guidance to states, which was here a couple days ago. Note this on the (limited) benefit of planning.....


Some of this is good and goes in the right direction. Planning, in itself, is a big step forward. But the plan on paper will go out the window in the first week (the old military saying applies: no battle plan survives the first engagement with the enemy), even while the planning is valuable by envisioning what is ahead, meeting your counterparts in other agencies, thinking it through, all tremendously valuable. States and localities need to be strongly and forcefully encouraged to do this. But most states and communities are also fully engaged in the desperate business of trying to keep people alive day to day and until they can get out from the falling debris of a system disintegrating about their ears. In those circumstances, pandemic planning is a luxury, even harmful to the extent it pulls people away from other urgent business.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

March 17 Flu Update

An 11 year old boy has died of bird flu in Vietnam.

Bird flu hits an 11th region in Vietnam.

A new region of India is having a bird flu scare.

ProMed on outbreaks in Vietnam and China (this one was reported yesterday).

Bird flu is also back in Borno, Nigeria.

Article on "caution" in Hong Kong

CIDRAP on the CDC pandemic exercise....the whole article is must read....but this excerpt rings pretty true, in my opinion.

The question of school closings and related "community mitigation" (CM) measures (also known as nonpharmaceutical interventions, or NPIs) arose early and often. At the first morning press briefing, Gerberding said, "As of this morning we're not recommending widespread school closures or other measures to reduce spread in crowds, but those measures are likely." She added that actual closings would be local decisions.

When she was asked what should trigger CM measures, Gerberding said, "When a community begins to see acceleration in the number of cases that suggests that transmission is really taking off, that's when closing schools and avoiding crowds can help. It's important to do it early, because if you wait till you have 1,000 or 10,000 cases, it's too late."

Hesitation and concerns about CM measures emerged in an hour-long Tuesday afternoon teleconference between senior CDC staffers and health officials from states affected by the pandemic. (The state officials were mostly played by CDC staffers in the Exercise Control Group, but three people from state health departments had joined the group for the exercise, according to Jerry Jones, director of the group.)

The Michigan official wanted to know if the CDC could recommend any particular NPIs as better than others. He said the state had a case-fatality rate of 7% in its 100 cases, signaling a severe pandemic under the CDC's community mitigation plan, so the state needed to launch mitigation steps. "But the local health departments are telling us they don't want to do all that work," he said. "So if there's one thing working better than others, we'd like to recommend it."


Revere blogs this as well, and note links to the FluWiki, where DemfromCt wrote extensively on this as an observer. Revere notes that exercises are one thing---but properly supported public health agencies are another.

Is it too risky to have backyard poultry?

Monday, March 17, 2008

March 16 Flu Update

This is all over the news. There is a new outbreak in China. It is actually in a poultry market, which seems to have some significance.

Bird flu has broken out in the south of China, killing more than 100 poultry, state media reported on Sunday, citing the agriculture ministry.

The outbreak occurred in a market in Guangzhou, in Guangdong province on Thursday, and was a ''highly pathogenic'' subtype of the H5N1 influenza virus, which can be deadly to humans, the report said.

The OIE has pledged avian vaccine to Vietnam.

Apparently, Indonesia says the US has been making biological weapons from bird flu obtained from Indonesia. The US flatly denies this. I'm not sure that would even make any sense.

Revere reviews US pandemic prep, with an eye toward whether we are preventing or procuring.

More on the civets in Vietnam....

Sunday, March 16, 2008

March 15 Flu Update

I maintain a pretty strict standard...we cover H5N1. But, this Time article on the Hong Kong scare of 08 has a lot of good info. Imagine if this was H5N1. Note the political pressure on Hong Kong. Note the strong response. Note, also, this (emphasis added):

Public health experts are still worried, however, that the current flu outbreak will lead to even greater use of the antiflu drug Tamiflu. The powerful treatment has been proven particularly effective against H5N1 and has become widely prescribed in Hong Kong — it is increasingly available illegally, without prescription, in pharmacies — so resistance to the drug is growing fast here. Doctors say the overuse of Tamiflu is creating a manifold risk, not only of weakening a weapon against a potential bird flu outbreak, but also of helping to spread a virulent strain of drug-resistant common flu in the wider population. "It's not a good thing to abuse," says Yuen.

And this....


But it's hard to keep a community still scarred by recent medical history from doing whatever it can to protect itself. Samuel Ho, a professor of psychology at Hong Kong University, says that during the SARS epidemic, Hong Kong residents were exceedingly concerned about infecting their families and loved ones with the virus. "People were worried about whether they would get the flu," says Ho, "But they worried more about their relations. ... How can I protect my wife? My kids?" He says that to help alleviate the kind of mass insecurity that recurs in Hong Kong during bad flu seasons like this one, doctors need to inform people not only of the true risks they face, but also what they can do to control them.

ProMed has extensive local information on the civet mystery, but does not seem to solve the ultimate riddle.

Things are quieting in Hong Kong, though note reports of a bird flu outbreak in China.

With a clean bill of health, the swannery in Dorset is cleared to open.

West Bengal claims no further outbreaks....says this story.

Yet, this story says otherwise.

Bird flu effects Indian grain markets.

Also, this story makes Thailand sound worse than we thought.

Vietnam is also raising the level of surveillance on bird flu.

A virtual symposium will be held in Asia on pandemic prep.

Wyoming is joining a national pandemic prep exercise.

A badminton tournament can go on, not withstanding the effect of bird flu on shuttlecock supply.

An Avian Flu manual has been produced for journalists, by UNICEF and others.

Here's a link to the manual

Saturday, March 15, 2008

March 14 Flu Update

Bird flu (no type yet) found in Edinburgh Scotland.

There's a dead bird in Hong Kong with H5N1.

Vietnam is cordoning off areas were bird flu has been found.

Vietnam is also planning closer surveillance.

ProMed on India, Vietnam and Bangladesh.

Nepal: Bird flu "nothing to fear now."

Why do people say stuff like this? Indian official says the state is "safe" from bird flu.

Official government report from India.

Lakewood CO cable station wins award for bird flu program.

CIDRAP reports on a model pandemic plan that HHS has for the states.

Physician publishing in the SF Chronicle has practical advice--flu vaccinations for children protect us all.


The greatest benefit, however, will be an indirect one: less influenza circulating in our communities. Children are an important reservoir for the virus; they can be infected with it and transmit it to others without getting sick or being only mildly ill themselves. Vaccinating them will reduce not only their own risk of illness but the risk of everyone they encounter.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

March 13 Flu Update

Almost certainly nothing, but....8 people from the same village in Indonesia are hospitalized with suspicion of bird flu.

There is now criticism that the state government in West Bengal is not serious about fighting bird flu.

Caluctta bird markets are being inspected for bird flu.

Bird flu losses continue to mount in Bangladesh.

The US is pledging help to Pakistan on bird flu.

WHO confirms recent Egypt case.

A post on Promed asks for more info on non-human primates in the flu-bearing world. This is, in fact, a good question.

Revere blogs about the civets in Indonesia. Whole post is good, key point follows:

The second question about the Vietnam civets is this: how did they get infected? They weren't fed poultry (as least as far as anyone knows, and this was explicitly considered) nor were they in contact with poultry. It sounds like these animals were semi-confined, so the virus would have to have been brought to them somehow. Wild birds? Possibly, although there is no evidence in this case. Humans? But how? On boots or shoes? Possibly. But this virus has shown transmissibility to mammals to be difficult, and unless it has changed in that respect, doesn't seem so likely. Other civets in the same enclosure were apparently unaffected. Or is their yet another vector. Bats? It might be. Bats are now implicated as an important source in SARS, not palm civets.

This case needs to be examined carefully. It is these often seemingly anomalous instances which are the most informative.


Bird flu information is passed along in Alabama.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

March 12 Flu Update

In India, warnings are given to states near West Bengal.....

A cull is underway in Indonesia...though no recent outbreaks have been reported.

In Pakistan, poultry prices are going up.

Not good: bird flu compensation has been held up.

Japan is closely to developing a nasal bird flu vaccine.

The Royal Veterinary College in Britain is using computer to study the likelihood of the bird flu.


Commanche County,KS, is doing pandemic prep.

Revere blogs this big story on "community control" from yesterday. As you might expect....not a good review. Remember, the Revere perspective is by building community health systems....

ProMed on an International Symposium about the effectiveness of Tamiflu.

ProMed on the civets....

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

March 11 Flu Update

A Chinese expert says the virus is mutating, and it a bigger threat to humans.

Are there human H5N1 cases in Hong Kong?

A computer model is pointing the way to fighting the bird flu pandemic in a city....

And in each of the simulations run for the city of 8.6 million people, a rational use of preemptive household antivirals combined with a consistent program aimed at reducing human contact helped contain the spread of disease. The key, the researchers said, lay in timely initiation of a pandemic plan that included shuttering schools.

Reuters has this story, too.

Some civets have died in Vietnam.

India is holding night raids to catch recalcitrant poultry farmers who won't turn their birds over.

Revere blogs yesterday's news that the seasonal flu was worse than expected, partly due to mismatched vaccine.

ProMed with reports on numerous countries.

The National Egg Council in India is looking for an investigation into how bird flu returned to West Bengal.

Surveillance is also going on in other parts of India.

Monday, March 10, 2008

March 10 Flu Update

CIDRAP outbreaks in India and Vietnam, as reported yesterday.

New reasons to worry for Calcutta.

Very interesting...China is saying it had 12 cases this year.....and calls situation "complicated." Read between the lines alert.

Today's best article. What did we learn for pandemic planning from this year's seasonal flu? Overcrowded ERs, vaccinated people getting sick....CIDRAP reports.


In the meantime, however, clinicians are concerned about the impression that the vaccine mismatch and the resulting flu cases will leave. Several times over the past decade, flu-vaccine problems—manufacturing problems, late vaccine delivery, an early-arriving season—have dented flu-vaccine uptake the following year.

"We will need to really clearly and plainly explain that each year, the experts make their best educated guess . . . and some years are spot-on and some years are a mismatch," said Dr. David Kimberlin, professor of pediatrics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "The burden is on the medical community to say that, if we do not have a complete match, you are still getting some protection, and it is better to have partial protection than none."

Some say this flu season has more lessons to teach. In Florida, emergency physician Ramirez—also a disaster-readiness consultant—ticked off the components: a significant flu-virus drift, a vaccine-manufacturing system that could not keep up, seriously ill patients, and an overwhelmed healthcare system.

"These are exactly the things we ought to be prepared for in an influenza pandemic, and we were not prepared," he said. "We ought to consider this flu season as a warning to healthcare and industry. This is a gunshot across our bow.

"

CIDRAP on another case in Egypt.

Bird flu back in West Bengal---must be smuggling.

Culling commences in West Bengal.

CIDRAP best practices---Kansas has tool to assess at-risk populations.

Japan eyes a mutation-proof flu vaccine.

Op-ED piece asks if Colorado is ready for a pandemic.

A wrong guess on the seasonal flu vaccine?

Sunday, March 09, 2008

March 9 Flu Update

Bird flu is back in West Bengal....

Despite massive culling, bird flu is back in a Bangladesh region.

A farmer in Bangladesh was quarantined, but is said not to have bird flu.

March 8 Flu Update

Food sales in Bangladesh are down....as people avoid poultry.

An Egyptian boy now has H5N1.

ProMed has this story as well.

ProMed also has avian outbreaks in Vietnam and Hong Kong.

Saturday, March 08, 2008

March 7 Flu Update

Bird flu is back in Hanoi after a year.

A wild bird is also H5N1 positive in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, man in Thailand is negative.

Interesting. Vietnam says its running out of Tamiflu that isn't dated.

Federal Reserve official says bird flu would hit city dwellers and poor hardest.

This is fascinating. A region in very rural Quebec--Nunavik--is figuring out how to isolate itself from the world in a pandemic. Must read.


If a pandemic flu hits Quebec, airline passengers won't be able to freely travel between Nunavik and the South for three months or longer.

Isolating Nunavik is the cornerstone of the Nunavik regional health board's "regional preventive isolation" plan to stop a pandemic - a worldwide outbreak of illness - from entering the region.

The board's plan means that when airline passengers from Nunavik travel south during a pandemic, they will not be able to return without first going through a period of enforced isolation, called a quarantine.


Ontario articles says that SARS might have been our last wake up call.

Revere on a test to determine if Tamiflu is counterfeit.

Russian officials warned that the bird flu risk is getting worse.

Pigeon racers are upset in UK that bird flu might threaten their events.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

March 6 Flu Update

There's a new case in Egypt, an 11 year old boy.

ProMed on this case as well....

Revere reminds us that the heart of the flu season is still upcoming.

Vietnam forecasts flu problems in May.

WHO says no sign of mutation in Indonesia.

Experts says a pandemic is still possible.

Bangladesh is waiving import duties on poultry feed to help the poultry industry.

Churches in Missouri are getting pandemic books.

Flu prep is also ongoing in Alabama.

Doc in Ontario tells readers that personal responsibility will be key for the flu pandemic.

Delaware monitors bird flu in wild birds.

In Trinidad, farmers are urged to keep an eye on their poultry.

OIE and China are going to communicate better.

Not today.....

I have a headache...

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

March 4 Flu Update

ProMed on Egypt, and a bird in Iraq suspected to have bird flu.

If children stop eating poultry due to bird flu, and their protein levels go down, will that affect their development.

Paper says gene swapping--not reassortment--might have caused two 20th Century pandemics.

Only one in four schools in New Zealand are ready for a pandemic.

Bird flu entrenched in Asia.

March 3 Flu Update

Post of the day. Revere looks at some research that tested blood of poultry farmers in Thailand. The conclusion is that there do not appear to be large amounts of minor, undetected cases of bird flu. "The tip of the iceberg is the iceberg." Given the virulence of the disease (and the implication that the case fatality rate we see is, more or less the real case fatality rate), we should hope it stays that way.

There is a suspected human case in Thailand.

Tamiflu appears to be doing better in aiding the survival of H5N1 patients.

(Effect Measure blogs this as well....)

Two more provinces hit in Vietnam.

Pakistan is looking to register all poultry farms.

CIDRAP on the new case in Eygpt.

ProMed also summarizes recent cases in Egypt.

A suspected case in Hong Kong is negative.

Interstingly, the new flu vaccine apparently is more protective of Asians than Caucasians. (Take that Indonesia).

Indonesian NGO is taking its bird flu program into new areas.

After that the center introduced the use of special nets to contain the movement of chickens and ducks in backyard farms.

"We recommended they develop healthy backyard farming by installing the special net around the farm to minimize direct contact between human and fowls."

Sunday, March 02, 2008

March 2 Flu Update

ProMed on the Egyptian case.

Yesterday, we ran the story about Australia's involvement in the start of the virus dispute with Indonesia. Today, Revere blogs and comments on how the previous government started it, and whether the current government is living up to its promise to fix it.

Myanmar calls for bird flu action.

Public is helping to monitor birds in Arizona.

Bird flu threat continues in Karachi.

March 1 Flu Update

Is a cluster emerging? Father and son with bird flu in Indonesia.

There's also a new human case in Egypt.

The decision by Indonesia to send bird flu samples to WHO has put the Australian government under pressure.

The GSK virus is shown to be cross protective against several sub-strains.

We cover everything, including speeches at assisted living facilities about flu and bird flu in Alabama.

Advice on cooking chicken to defend against bird flu in Bangladesh.

Bird flu and food in Asia.

People in Arizona are urged to report dead fowl to the authorities.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

February 29 Leap Day Flu Update

Dead Goose in UK is H5N1, near where swams were sick earlier.

A Chinese official says disease risk is the highest in the Spring.

Bird flu in the Dominican Republic, though there is no news on whether its H5N1.

Another large cull in Indonesia.

People in Bangladesh are being urged not to panic about bird flu.

Bird flu yet another body blow to the economy in Bangladesh.

They are prepping for the bird flu in Knoxville.

Wildlife experts look for bird flu in Delaware.

Interesting US Government site on 1918 pandemic.