Avian Flu Study Finally And Fully Published
After endless toing and froing over whether two studies that demonstrated how bird flu, also known as avian H5N1 influenza, or avian flu, should be published, one of them has appeared in the latest issue of the journal Nature in its entirety. The studies show how the bird flu virus could become transmissible from mammal-to-mammal; as humans are mammals, the same would apply to humans...
Study Identifies Genetic Regulators Hijacked By Avian And Swine Flu Viruses
Researchers at the University of British Columbia have identified a number of tiny but powerful "genetic regulators" that are hijacked by avian and swine flu viruses during human infection. The discovery, published in the Journal of Virology, could reveal new targets for broad-spectrum antivirals to combat current - and perhaps future - strains of influenza A viruses...
News From The Journals Of The American Society For Microbiology: March 2012
High Pressure Kills Pathogens, Maintains Green Onions' Taste and Color Green onions cause about five percent of outbreaks of food poisoning from produce, worldwide...
How To Balance Risk Of Escape Of New H5N1 Viruses With Benefits Of Research
In the controversy surrounding the newly developed strains of avian H5N1 flu viruses, scientists and policy makers are struggling with one question in particular: what level of biosafety is best for studying these potentially lethal strains of influenza? In a pair of commentaries, researchers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and the University of Michigan arg...
Natural Killer T Cells Reduce The Accumulation Of Monocytes And Prevent Lung Injury In Severe Flu
While some scientists report engineering a super virulent strain of the H5N1 influenza virus, which could potentially wipe out a significant percentage of the human population, another group of researchers from the United Kingdom now reports a discovery that may one day help mitigate the deadly effects of all flu strains...
Influenza A Virus In Fruit Bats
After the discovery of a new influenza A virus in fruit bats in Guatemala, a study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , reveals that the virus represents no current threat to humans, although scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the University of the Valley of Guatemala, recommend to research the virus as a potential so...
Wide-Scale Flu Prevention Via 'Universal' Vaccines
An emerging class of long-lasting flu vaccines could do more than just save people the trouble of an annual flu shot. Princeton University-based researchers have found that the "universal" vaccine could for the first time allow for the effective, wide-scale prevention of flu by limiting the influenza virus' ability to spread and mutate...
Opinion: H5N1 Flu Is Just As Dangerous As Feared, Now Requires Action
The debate about the potential severity of an outbreak of airborne H5N1 influenza in humans needs to move on from speculation and focus instead on how we can safely continue H5N1 research and share the results among researchers, according to a commentary published in mBio�, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology....
Mutated H5N1 Virus Research To Remain Under Wraps For Now, Says WHO
The temporary moratorium on research on lab-modified bird flu (H5N1) viruses is to be extended, and the publication of the studies' "entire manuscript" is to be delayed...
Key Peptides Identified That Could Lead To A Universal Vaccine For Influenza
Researchers at the University of Southampton, University of Oxford and Retroscreeen Virology Ltd have discovered a series of peptides, found on the internal structures of influenza viruses that could lead to the development of a universal vaccine for influenza, one that gives people immunity against all strains of the disease, including seasonal, avian, and swine flu...
Biosecurity Runs Up Against Scientific Endeavor: NSABB And H5N1 Redactions
In response to recent actions of the U.S...
How New Viruses Evolve, And In Some Cases, Become Deadly
Researchers at Michigan State University (MSU) have demonstrated how a new virus evolves, shedding light on how easy it can be for diseases to gain dangerous mutations. The findings appear in the journal Science. The scientists showed for the first time how the virus called "Lambda" evolved to find a new way to attack host cells, an innovation that took four mutations to accomplish...
Newly Engineered Highly Transmissible H5N1 Strain Ignites Controversy About Balancing Scientific Discovery And Public Safety
Scientists have engineered a new strain of H5N1 (commonly known as bird flu) to be readily transmitted between humans. Two perspectives being published early online in Annals of Internal Medicine, the flagship journal of the American College of Physicians, raise concerns about if and how this research should be continued, and how the data should be shared for the benefit of public health...
Decision Of Researchers To Temporarily Halt Research On H5N1 Applauded By Georgetown Professor
A Georgetown University Medical Center professor says the voluntary action taken by two research teams to temporarily halt work involving the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 is "laudable...
News From The Journals Of The American Society For Microbiology
Saturated Fatty Acids Lead to Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Insulin Resistance Excessive levels of certain saturated fatty acids cause mitochondria to fragment, leading to insulin resistance in skeletal muscle, a precursor of type 2 diabetes, according to a paper in the January issue of the journal Molecular and Cellular Biology...
Bird Flu Kills Duck Farmer In Vietnam And Toddler In Cambodia
On Thursday the Vietnamese authorities reported that a duck farmer has died of bird flu, coinciding with reports that a two-year-old boy in Cambodia has also died of the virus this week. The Vietnamese victim died on 11 January. According to the authorities this was the first human death from avian flu for nearly two years...
Flu Pandemics May Follow La Niña
US scientists propose that flu pandemics follow La Niña weather conditions in the equatorial Pacific. The conditions alter bird migration patterns and this promotes new strains of flu (migrating birds are known to be primary pools of human influenza virus)...
Shenzhen Man Dies Of Bird Flu
The Hong Kong Centre for Health Protection (CHP) received notification from the Ministry of Health (MoH) on the 30th December concerning a suspected human case of influenza A (H5N1) in Shenzhen. The man has unfortunately died...
Hong Kong Bans Poultry After Chinese Man Dies Of Bird Flu
Authorities in Hong Kong have banned imports of poultry products from certain places in neighbouring Shenzhen, a major city in the south of Southern China's Guangdong Province, following the death there of a man confirmed as having the deadly form of bird flu known as highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1...
Mutated Bird Flu Research Worries World Health Organization
Research on the H5N1 influenza (bird flu) virus' human transmissibility is seriously starting to worry WHO (World Health Organization) experts - in a written statement, the authors express concern about the potential risks linked to this research. The possible negative consequences of some experiments are serious and potentially dangerous...
US Govt Asks Scientists To Keep Lab-Bred Bird Flu Blueprint Secret
Imagine this, our worst nightmare becomes our reality: as anticipated, the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus that kills most people it infects has acquired the ability to transmit easily from bird to human and then from human to human and has reached pandemic proportions...
News From The Journals Of The American Society For Microbiology
First Molecular Evidence Links Live Poultry Markets to Human H5N1 Infection in China Sequences of H5N1 virus from live bird markets in China matched sequences from patients who had recently visited the live bird markets, according to a paper in the December 2011 Journal of Virology...
Report Of Rare Flu Co-Infection In Southeast Asia Hot Spot
Researchers conducting influenza-like illness surveillance in Cambodia have confirmed a rare incidence of individuals becoming infected with a seasonal influenza and the pandemic strain at the same time, a reminder of the ongoing risk of distinct flu viruses combining in human hosts to produce a more lethal strain, according to a report in the November issue of the American Jou...
Avian Flu Vaccine More Effective When Primed With DNA Vaccine
The immune response to an H5N1 avian influenza vaccine was greatly enhanced in healthy adults if they were first primed with a DNA vaccine expressing a gene for a key H5N1 protein, researchers say. Their report describes results from two clinical studies conducted by researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health...
H5 Bird Flu Outbreak In West Bengal, India
An H5 bird flu (avian flu) outbreak in West Bengal, eastern India has triggered the culling of poultry and eggs, authorities have informed. Infected birds have been reported in the Nadia district of West Bengal, according to India's Ministry of Agriculture. A mutant bird flu strain is spreading in other parts of Asia...

About Bird Flu

This map shows the recent extent (as of April 21, 2006) to which the bird flu virus has spread to wild and domestic birds as well as humans. Map credit: www.pandemicflu.gov