Researchers at the Food Policy Institute at the Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station have conducted a nationwide survey of public knowledge, attitudes, intentions and behaviors related to the threat of highly pathogenic avian influenza. The researchers conducted a total of 1200 telephone interviews on the topic between May 3 and June 5, 2006.

Veterinarians who work with birds are at increased risk for infection with avian influenza virus and should be among those with priority access to pandemic influenza vaccines and antivirals, according to a study conducted by researchers in the University of Iowa College of Public Health.

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.

It is still unknown how a soldier - China's last case of bird flu -contacted virus that remains a public health threat, the World Health Organization said Monday.

Two of three promised samples of bird flu in China have arrived in the U.S., the WHO said. The samples are the first sent by Beijing in a year. The sample updates of the H5N1 virus from China's Health Ministry are awaiting customs clearance, said Joanna Brent, a spokeswoman for WHO's Beijing office.

The supreme decision-making body of the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) wrapped up its annual session today, reaching last-minute agreements on pandemic influenza preparedness and access to medicines for the poor.

Vietnamese authorities say the H5N1 strain of bird flu has struck farms in four provinces in Vietnam, killing almost 2,000 unvaccinated ducks. Authorities said Tuesday the virus has been found in the three northern provinces of Son La, Quang Ninh, Nam Dinh and in the country's southern Mekong Delta province of Can Tho.

In an opening address to the 60th World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan promised to vigorously work to improve health for Africans and for women. In a wide-ranging review of global health issues, Dr. Chan also reaffirmed her commitment to address the threat of an avian flu pandemic.

The Indonesian Health Minister says her country has resumed sharing samples of the H5N1 bird flu virus with the World Health Organisation (WHO) after a five-month gap.

The United States military has started to plan for a possible bird flu pandemic that could kill as many as 3 million Americans. The Pentagon's plan for dealing with a massive outbreak of avian flu has been posted on its website.

New data published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) has confirmed a low frequency of resistance to Tamiflu (oseltamivir) over 3 influenza seasons (2003 - 2006)1.