Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) — Human bird-flu infections may rise in
Asia as people handle more poultry for next week’s Lunar New Year
celebrations, according to a United Nations veterinarian who
tracks the virus in birds.
Health authorities in China, South Korea and Vietnam have
stepped up surveillance of H5N1 avian influenza among poultry
ahead of the festival, which starts Jan. 26. Production of
chickens and ducks swells as much as three times in the Read the rest of this entry »

January 20, 2009 1:45 a.m. EST
Beijing, China (AHN) – Health officials of Hunan Province in central China on Monday said a 16-year-old local boy is critically ill from bird flu infection.
The Hunan provincial health bureau identified the victim only by his family name Wu from the southwestern Guizhou Province. The boy was infected on Jan. 8 and his condition worsened eight days later, bureau officials said.
The Chinese Center for Disease Control Read the rest of this entry »

Monday, January 19, 2009
Extra beds should be set aside in New Territories hospitals to cope with the threat of a cross-border bird flu outbreak, a leading scientist warned as two more mainland cases were confirmed last night.
Hong Kong faces a twin Lunar New Year bird flu threat as millions move around the nation and sit down to traditional feasts prepared with fresh poultry, Hong Kong University microbiologist Ho Pak-leung warned.
His warning Read the rest of this entry »

BEIJING (AP) — The Chinese Health Ministry says a second person has died from bird flu in China this year.
The ministry said on its Web site late Sunday that the latest victim was a 27-year-old woman surnamed Zhang who lived in Jinan city of northern China’s Shandong province. She died Saturday.
Earlier this month, a 19-year-old woman died from the bird flu virus in a Beijing hospital after contact with ducks in a market in a neighboring Read the rest of this entry »

The peanut company linked to a salmonella outbreak ran an unlicensed peanut processing plant in Texas that wasn’t inspected by state health officials until recently,
. Inspectors weren’t even aware of the Peanut Corp. of America plant until the Food and Drug Administration started investigating the outbreak, A.P. learned.
Millions of Dollars for H.I.V. Vaccine
A Massachusetts technology magnate is donating $100 million to the search for a H.I.V. Read the rest of this entry »

BEIJING (AP) — A woman in China’s far west has died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu, the Health Ministry said Saturday, the country’s fourth death from the virus this year as the biggest festive season approaches.
The victim, a 31-year-old woman from Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region, had been to a live poultry market before she fell ill on Jan. 10, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing Wang Xiaoyan, a deputy director Read the rest of this entry »

BEIJING (AFP) — China scrambled Monday to stamp out a revived bird flu threat after a second person died at the most dangerous time of the year with poultry consumption spiking ahead of the nation’s main holiday.
A 27-year-old woman surnamed Zhang died in the east Chinese province of Shandong on Saturday, nearly two weeks after falling ill, the provincial health bureau said.
It was the second confirmed fatality this month from the H5N1 Read the rest of this entry »

BEIJING (AP) — China’s top health official on Tuesday ordered stronger measures to prevent the spread of bird flu as the country announced its third fatality from the H5N1 virus in a month.
The World Health Organization, meanwhile, said the cases were a “perfectly normal occurrence” during colder months.
Chinese Health Minister Chen Zhu said health departments across the nation need to pay “great attention” to stepping up efforts to stop Read the rest of this entry »

HANOI (AFP) — A Vietnamese girl has tested positive for bird flu, health officials said Tuesday, in the first reported human case of the deadly virus in the Southeast Asian country since early last year.
The eight-year-old girl from northern Thanh Hoa province fell ill with serious pneumonia on December 27 after eating poultry and was admitted to a provincial hospital on January 2, said health officials.
“The test result was available on Read the rest of this entry »

Malaria pills usually are bitter and too large for children to swallow, but drug maker Novartis and the nonprofit Medicines for Malaria Venture have developed a small cherry-flavored pill that easily dissolves,
. The next challenge: getting the medicine to remote villages in Africa.
Starbucks is removing all products containing peanut butter from store shelves, even though it did not come from the plant responsible for the salmonella outbreak. Read the rest of this entry »