Latest bird flu Stories

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Agriculture Department's failure to develop a "comprehensive" program to monitor for bird flu could leave the country unprepared if an outbreak happens, a bipartisan group of senators said on Friday. In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, six lawmakers said some states were not as prepared as they should be for the disease. To better protect public health, they said, the department should provide states with a protocol for developing avian...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Health and Human Services Department released another $225 million to states and cities on Tuesday to use in preparing for a pandemic of bird flu or other disease. The allotment is the largest share of $350 million designated to help state and local governments buy supplies and fix up medical and emergency services. The first $100 million was distributed in February to identify gaps. The money goes to help states pay for activities above and beyond what...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Health and Human Services Department released another $225 million to states and cities on Tuesday to use in preparing for a pandemic of bird flu or other disease.The allotment is the largest share of $350 million designated to help state and local governments buy supplies and fix up medical and emergency services. The first $100 million was distributed in February to identify the gaps."These funds will build on the work begun at the summits and help...

By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - The risk of bird flu mutating into a form more easily spread between people is still high and there could be an increase in human infections at the end of the year, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Friday. In a report analyzing more than 200 known bird flu cases, the United Nations agency identified three peaks in human infections since 2003, all concentrated during the winter and spring seasons in the northern hemisphere. "If this...

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world's top-selling drugs, cholesterol-lowering statins, might provide a way to treat feared bird flu, according to a doctor and retired drug company executive who is trying to get the researchers to study the possibility. Antivirals that affect the influenza virus are in short supply, and it will be years before vaccine makers can ramp up capacity enough to immunize the world's population against a pandemic...

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said on Tuesday, it has only negative results for all bird flu samples taken from a backyard flock in Eastern Canada."So far we have nothing but negative results from all samples that have been taken from Prince Edward Island," said CFIA veterinarian Dr. Jim Clark.All indications show the gosling carried a low-pathogen strain of bird flu which is not a threat to human health.

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science CorrespondentWASHINGTON -- A lab-engineered bird flu vaccine protected ferrets against several strains of H5N1 avian influenza, offering the possibility of making a vaccine ahead of any pandemic, U.S.-based scientists said on Wednesday.But it may be tricky to test it in humans, reported Elena Govorkova and colleagues at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.The animals were protected even though they did not show the usual antibody...

By Richard WaddingtonGENEVA (Reuters) - World Health Organization chief Lee Jong-wook of South Korea died on Monday two days after suffering a blood clot on the brain, the United Nations agency said.Lee, 61, was spearheading the organization's fight against global threats from bird flu, AIDS and other infectious diseases. WHO director-general since 2003, Lee was his country's top international official."I am sorry to tell you that Dr. Lee Jong-wook, director-general of the WHO, died this...

By Richard WaddingtonGENEVA -- The World Health Organization's director-general Lee Jong-wook of South Korea died on Monday after surgery to remove a blood clot from the brain, the United Nations agency said.Lee, 61, had been WHO chief since 2003 and was spearheading the Organization's fight against the global threat of bird flu."I am sorry to tell you that Dr. Lee Jong-wook, director-general of the WHO, died this morning," Spain's Health Minister Elena Salgado, who was chairing...

By Peter MurphyABIDJAN (Reuters) - Days after bird flu was detected in Ivory Coast, hundreds of people were trembling, flapping their arms and clucking like hens.But there was no cause for alarm -- the outbreak was confined to dancefloors.The movements which are now the talk of the town in the West African country are the brainchild of a 21-year-old disc jockey DJ Lewis, who invented a dance making light of the deadly virus -- by imitating a chicken in its death throes during a...