Scientists at the University of Liverpool have found that 73% of avian flu outbreaks in the UK would not spread beyond the initial infected farm, but larger outbreaks are more likely to involve the duck meat industry.

Scientists from Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and Rice University have developed a three-dimensional, molecular map that could yield clues about the genetic mutations that will allow bird flu to spread among humans.

Smiths Detection, part of global technology business Smiths Group, today announces it is to launch a portable detection system that will enable veterinarians to carry out on-site diagnosis of animal diseases such as foot-and-mouth and avian flu. This new technology means vets will be able to diagnose diseases in livestock and birds in the field in less than 90 minutes rather than having to send samples for laboratory analysis.

The influenza A virus does not lie dormant during summer but migrates globally and mixes with other viral strains before returning to the Northern Hemisphere as a genetically different virus, according to biologists who say the finding settles a key debate on what the virus does during the summer off-season when it is not infecting people.

Researchers at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN), Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) and Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) have successfully developed a miniaturized device that can be used to detect the highly pathogenic avian flu (H5N1) virus.

In the first systematic, statistical analysis of its kind, infectious-disease-modeling experts at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center confirm that the avian influenza A (H5N1) virus in 2006 spread between a small number of people within a family in Indonesia.

The World Bank has approved a US$16 million credit for Bangladesh from the International Development Association (IDA), the Bank’s concessionary arm, to support the Government’s efforts to minimize the threat and risk of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI).

In this week's BMJ, a senior doctor advises caution over the use of the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu).

International agencies fighting the avian flu epidemic concluded a regional workshop with a renewed call for effective and comprehensive strategies in Africa.

Starting with blood of patients who survived a bout of avian flu (infection with the H5N1 strain), Cameron Simmons (of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) and colleagues generated neutralizing human monoclonal antibodies and show that they can halt viral growth in mice deliberately infected with H5N1 virus.

An international team of scientists, including researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, report using antibodies derived from immune cells from recent human survivors of H5N1 avian influenza to successfully treat H5N1-infected mice as well as protect them from an otherwise lethal dose of the virus.