h five n one latest

ASIA - Laboratory confirmation points to both old and new isolates of the bird flu virus as sources of recent HPAI outbreaks in Southeast Asia, FAO said today. Concerned about the recurrence of bird flu in Asia, close monitoring of diagnostic results by FAO has revealed that bird flu is endemic in some areas while new strains have emerged in other places.

JAKARTA - Three additional suspected bird-flu patients were being treated in a hospital in Indonesia's West Java. The Antara news agency said the latest patient was admitted Friday, but two other apparent bird-flu patients were admitted at the hospital in Bandung Wednesday and Thursday.

THAILAND - Recent outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu in Thailand were caused by two strains of the virus, but neither of them showed any significant mutation that would enable them to jump easily to people or spread with ease among humans.
United Nations officials in Bangkok Thursday confirmed that the recent outbreak of avian influenza along the Thailand-Laos Mekong River border area was due to a strain of virus not previously present in either country, and that it probably came from southern China.

SOUTH KOREA - South Korea has halted import inspections of U.S. poultry after the discovery of bird flu in Michigan, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said Wednesday.

MEXICO - Mexico's Agricultural Department said on Tuesday it was taking the precautionary measure of banning imports of poultry from the U.S. state of Michigan after authorities there said that a relatively harmless, low-grade strain of the H5N1 bird-flu virus had been found.

TRINIDAD - The Agriculture Ministry yesterday announced that a low pathogenic strain of Avian Influenza (AI) has been detected at a farm in Central Trinidad.

RUSSIA - Russia, the world’s largest poultry importer, may halt its imports of the product from the U.S. state of Michigan, because two birds infected with avian influenza (bird flu) were discovered there last week, the country’s Federal Veterinary Service said last Wednesday.

BULGARIA - Bulgaria's first suspected cases of bird flu in poultry have been confirmed as Newcastle disease, a low-pathogenic form of bird flu, not related to the potentially lethal H5 or H7 viruses, final test results from the EU reference laboratory showed on Tuesday.

UK - Vaccinating poultry flocks against bird flu could make the spread of deadly strains such as H5N1 worse, Scottish scientists have found. An Edinburgh University study concluded that, even though the available vaccines are effective on individual birds, the disease is likely to spread unless more than 95% of a flock has been protected.

US - The USDA announced last tuesday that routine surveillance has indicated the presence of H5 and N1 avian influenza subtypes in samples from two wild mute swans in Michigan, but testing has ruled out the possibility of this being the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain that has spread through birds in Asia, Europe and Africa.
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