Bird traders fingered in spread of avian flu

May 31 2006 at 03:42AM

By Svetlana Kovalyova

Rome - The multi-billion-dollar trade in poultry and wild birds, especially illegal trading, may have helped spread deadly bird flu around the world, leading bird flu experts said on Tuesday.

The virus has killed 127 of the 224 people it has infected since re-emerging in Asia in late 2003, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

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Indonesia boy tests positive locally for bird flu

2006/6/1
JAKARTA, Reuters


A 15-year-old Indonesian boy has tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu, a senior health ministry official said on Wednesday, citing results of a local laboratory.

The results are not considered definitive and samples are on their way to a World Health Organisation-accredited laboratory in Hong Kong for confirmation. "Usually, if local tests are positive it's also positive in Hong Kong," said Hariadi Wibisono, director of animal-borne disease control at the Health Ministry.

The boy, from Tasikmalaya town in west Java, was admitted to hospital on May 29 and died a day later.

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Flu kills every 2.5 days in Indonesia

June 1, 2006 - 12:30PM


Indonesia averaged one human bird flu death every 2 1/2 days in May and will soon surpass Vietnam as the country hardest-hit by the disease.

The latest death, announced on Wednesday, was a 15-year-old boy whose preliminary tests were positive for the H5N1 virus.

It comes as international health officials express growing frustration that they must fight Indonesia's stifling bureaucracy as well as the disease.

Indonesia, a massive archipelago of 17,000 islands that is home to 220 million people, has a patchwork of local, regional and national bureaucracies that often send mixed messages, officials said.

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115 outbreaks of bird flu reported in Romania

UPDATED: 11:18, May 30, 2006

A total of 115 outbreaks of avian flu had now been reported in Romania, according to Agriculture Ministry spokesman Adrian Tibu on Monday.

The number of reported outbreaks had increased by 27 on Monday alone, Tibu said. The total as of Sunday was just 88 outbreaks.

The bird flu was spreading very rapidly in Romania, Tibu added.

Currently, just two of the six districts of the Romanian capital have not reported any outbreaks.

Local authorities on Monday continued large-scale disinfection and quarantines in the districts with reported outbreaks, as well as culling poultry raised by residents.

LINK

Flurry of bird flu cases worry experts

May 30, 2006

Scientists are worried about a sudden flurry of human bird flu cases in Indonesia, warning that a failure to control the situation may raise the chances of a virus mutation and lead to a pandemic.

However, local experts say all six of the recent infections in humans were probably linked to diseased birds: investigations found that in three cases, the victims fell sick a few days after chickens died in their villages. Three of the six died.

"To me, the most likely cause is H5N1 from animals," said I Nyoman Kandun, director-general of communicable disease control.

Indeed, apart from an 18-year-old and his 10-year-old sister, the four other cases were isolated infections and the victims lived far apart from one another.

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Romania culls birds as avian flu outbreaks multiply

26 May 2006 14:17:42 GMT

By Radu Marinas

BUCHAREST, May 26 (Reuters) - Romania has reported more than 70 outbreaks of avian flu in birds over the past two weeks, mostly in the central region of Transylvania, a month after the strain was said to have been eradicated in the Black Sea state.

The latest outbreaks originated at a poultry farm in the county of Brasov, some 170 km (100 miles) north of Bucharest, from where live chickens were sold to peasants across the country without health certificates, the government says.

"The bird flu virus has been confirmed in 75 localities from 13 counties. There are also 35 suspect locations. The national institute for animal health is further testing suspect deaths in fowl," the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement.

Three districts in the capital Bucharest are among those affected. Over the past 10 days alone, authorities have culled 450,000 birds to prevent the spread of the virus, which a World Health Organisation expert says "has broken out very rapidly."

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A New Bird Flu Cluster

Web Exclusive| Science & Health

Eight family members in rural Indonesia fall ill, and medical investigators are racing to figure out why

By BRYAN WALSH/HONG KONG

Posted Wednesday, May. 24, 2006
Public fears of bird flu seem to have abated in recent weeks, but scientists know the world is always one viral mutation away from a deadly pandemic. That fact has been driven home again by a worrying cluster of human bird flu cases in rural Indonesia that could represent the first time the H5N1 virus has managed to pass from human to human to human. The cluster likely began with a 37-year-old woman who hosted a family pork roast on April 29 in the Indonesian village of Kubu Sembilang in north Sumatra. The woman had become sick on April 27, and as she worsened, several family members slept in the same small room as she did. By the first week of May six more members of the family had fallen ill with avian flu. The first woman died on May 4 and was buried before any tissue samples could be taken, but doctors were able to confirm H5N1 in the remaining family members, all but one of whom have died. An eighth family member, a 32-year- old man, became sick on May 15 and died May 22; he may have caught the virus while caring for his infected 10-year-old son, who died of the disease on May 13.

The WHO has dispatched a team of investigators to the area, including experts from the organization's headquarters in Geneva, but they have been unable to find any evidence of contaminated poultry in the village that may have triggered the human infections. "If we can't find an external source that explains all seven confirmed cases, then we have to go with the theory that this is human to human," says Peter Cordingley, the spokesperson for the WHO's Western Pacific regional headquarters. Human to human transmission within a family is believed to have occurred at least twice before, in Thailand and Vietnam, although never involving this many people. But if the 10-year-old boy was infected by a family member, and then went on to infect his father, it would represent the first known time the virus had passed from human to human to human. "It's certainly possible," says Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesperson in Geneva.

That's a worrying threshold to cross, but the good news is that the virus doesn't seem to have spread outside the family. The 32-year- old man ran away from doctors after falling ill, and passed though four neighboring villages before he was apprehended, coming into contact with 33 people. All of them are currently under observation and being given the antiviral drug Tamiflu as a prophylactic, but none have shown signs of infection. Scientists have genetically sequenced two viruses isolated from the cluster and found no evidence of the kinds of significant mutations that would likely be necessary before the virus could pass easily from person to person. "The virus looks pretty much the same as other cases," says Dr. Guan Yi, an avian-flu expert at the University of Hong Kong who has seen the genetic sequences.

If those contacts remain healthy for the next week and a half, then the outbreak at Kubu Sembilang will likely be judged contained. But the cluster itself could remain a mystery. Villagers have been extremely uncooperative with investigators, complicating efforts to get samples from animals and forcing the WHO to set up its command hub 5 miles from the village. "We don't have a lot of access to the village right now," says Hartl. "But they've lost seven people. There's a lot of shock and grief they have to work through first." It's a reminder of the power bird flu still has to surprise—and to kill.

Human-to-human bird flu transmission confirmed, UN predicts death of 150 million people

I am posting this article, but I don't know how reliable the source is.When I found the article I did a google search and it was there, when I checked back about 15 min. later the article was gone.

[ 24 May 2006 15:30 ]

Human-to-human transmission of bird flu has been confirmed in Indonesia (APA). The mutated form of the virus is the danger that scientists expected.

The spread of the bird flu virus from human to human can claim millions of lives. According to pessimistic forecasts of the UN experts, the spread of the virus from human to human may lead to the death of at least 150 million people. Russian head sanitary inspector Gennadi Inishenko predicts 50 million and Russian Emergencies Ministry predicts 27 million might die from this virus.
The possibility of spread of the H5N1 virus from human to human was confirmed in Indonesia. The virus has been found on three children, who stayed in the same room with the infected woman.
The World Health Organization has investigated the death of six of seven members of a family, who contracted the deadly virus in Indonesia. It was confirmed that the 10-year-old child contracted the virus from his aunt and it spread to the father and other members of the family. The WHO is now conducting a large-scale investigation into the case of human-to-human transmission of bird flu.
The Health Ministry spokesman Samaye Mammadova told APA that no emergency sanitary regime is due to be held in Azerbaijan related to the investigation of new mutated form of the bird flu virus. She said precautions are being implemented.
The H5N1 virus has already killed more than 120 people worldwide since 2003. It has also devastated poultry stocks. /APA/

human to human bird flu

WHO expresses concern about large human bird flu cluster in Indonesia

04:30:36 EDT May 24, 2006

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - The United Nations health agency described the deaths of six Indonesian family members from bird flu as the most important development in the spread of the virus since 2003, saying the size of the cluster and difficulties in determining the source were real reasons for concern.

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Seven Indonesian Bird Flu Cases Linked to Patients, WHO Says

May 23 (Bloomberg) -- All seven people infected with bird flu in a cluster of Indonesian cases can be linked to other patients, according to disease trackers investigating possible human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 virus.

A team of international experts has been unable to find animals that might have infected the people, six of whom have died, the World Health Organization said in a statement today. In one case, a 10-year-old boy who caught the virus from his aunt may have passed it to his father, the first time officials have seen evidence of a three-person chain of infection, an agency spokeswoman said.

Almost all of the 218 cases of H5N1 infections confirmed by the WHO since late 2003 can be traced to direct contact with sick or dead birds. Strong evidence of human-to-human transmission may prompt the global health agency to convene a panel of experts and consider raising the pandemic alert level, said Maria Cheng, an agency spokeswoman.

``Considering the evidence and the size of the cluster, it's a possibility,'' Cheng said in a telephone interview. ``it depends on what we're dealing with in Indonesia. It's an evolving situation.''

The 32-year-old father in the cluster of cases on the island of Sumatra was ``closely involved in caring for his son, and this contact is considered a possible source of infection,'' The WHO said in its statement. Three others, including the sole survivor in the group, spent a night in a ``small'' room with the boy's aunt, who later died and was buried before health officials could conduct tests for the H5N1 virus.

``All confirmed cases in the cluster can be directly linked to close and prolonged exposure to a patient during a phase of severe illness,'' the WHO said.

[human to human]

1 000s quarantined in Bucharest

Bucharest - About 13 000 people were quarantined in the Romanian capital on Monday as troops and police sealed off streets in response to the city's second bird-flu outbreak, said officials.

The mayor of the southern fourth district, Adrian Inimaroiu, said residents would be cut off and all businesses in the area would be closed during the quarantine period of up to three weeks.

The move came after the agriculture ministry earlier on Monday confirmed the presence of the H5 bird-flu virus in dead chickens found in the neighbourhood, the latest of dozens of outbreaks of avian flu in Romania this spring.

Inimaroiu said, urging residents to stay calm, that "about 40 streets have been blocked" in the Luica quarter.

He said the quarantine would last for "a period of a week to 21 days and all the institutions in this quarter will be closed".

"About 2 500 birds from this area will be slaughtered as rapidly as possible," said the mayor.

A neighbourhood on the northern outskirts of the capital was put under quarantine on Sunday evening with fences blocking a dozen streets and police preventing anyone from going in or out, except for medical emergencies.

Two more bird flu deaths confirmed in Indonesia

22 May 2006 08:31:35 GMT
Source: Reuters

JAKARTA, May 22 (Reuters) - Local tests have confirmed two more people have died of bird flu in Indonesia, a senior health ministry official said on Monday.

One of the victims belonged to a Sumatran family at the centre of fears of human-to-human transmission after six members of the family died this month of bird flu.

"One man from the same Sumatra cluster died this morning. He is the father of the child who died on May 13. He ran away after he received Tamiflu," said I Nyoman Kandun, director-general of communicable disease control at the health ministry.

"He was found in the village later but refused treatment," Kandun told reporters.

Local results on bird flu cases are not considered definitive and need confirmation from the World Health Organisation.

The WHO confirmed last week that six family members from Kubu Simbelang village in North Sumatra province were infected with the H5N1 avian influenza virus.

Kandun said there was no evidence the H5N1 virus had mutated in the Kubu Simbelang cluster case, which has drawn global concern because officials have found no definitive source of the outbreak.

Most cases of human infection worldwide have been through contact with sick poultry or their droppings. Tests on poultry in the village were positive for the H5 subtype virus but more tests are need to confirm it they were infected with H5N1.

Tests on pigs have been positive for antibodies, suggesting they were recently infected with H5N1.

Kandun said a 38-year-old man from Jakarta who died last week had also been declared positive for bird flu by local tests.

The WHO has confirmed 32 fatalities from avian influenza in the world's fourth most populous nation, the second highest number of human deaths after Vietnam.

The virus has spread in birds at an alarming rate in recent months, sweeping through parts of Europe, down into Africa and across into South Asia.

It is difficult for humans to catch, but experts fear the virus could evolve into a form passes easily from human to human, causing a pandemic that could kill millions.

Testing for Bird Flu Begins in Alaska

Thu May 18, 4:35 PM ET

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Federal scientists have started testing migratory birds for signs of a dangerous bird flu that could show up on this continent this spring.

The testing of shorebirds began Wednesday on an Anchorage coastal wildlife refuge, said Bruce Woods, spokesman with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

It's the first sampling of a summer-long project to swab birds for bird flu throughout the state. Nationwide, the goal is to sample 75,000 to 100,000 wild birds. In Alaska, about $4 million in federal money will be allocated to study about 15,000 birds, Woods said.

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Discovery of poultry exposed to bird flu virus was kept from public

James Meikle
Thursday May 18, 2006
The Guardian

Government scientists found evidence of bird flu in poultry in October but did not report their concerns to the public, the Guardian can reveal. The scientists placed movement restrictions on a bird rescue centre in south-west England after finding evidence that 13 free-range geese had been exposed to an H5 virus, one of two types of virus most likely to become deadly to birds and a group known to be a health risk to people.

The restrictions, which lasted at least a week until further tests ruled out any infection, came shortly after the highly dangerous H5N1 strain had been found in imported birds kept in quarantine. No mention was made of the incident by the environment department, Defra, either then or during last month's scares caused by the dead swan at Cellardyke, Fife, which had H5N1, and by the outbreak of H7N3 on three farms in Norfolk.

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Laos finds first bird flu case since 2004

Reuters - Thursday, May 18, 2006

BANGKOK - The H5N1 bird flu strain has been found in a duck in Laos, but there is no sign that the virus is spreading, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Wednesday.
The isolated case in a backyard farm 20 km (12 miles) south of Vientiane is the first since the Southeast Asian nation reported an outbreak among poultry in early 2004.

"We are doing surveillance and so far everything is negative," Ricarda Mondry, the FAO's chief technical adviser on avian influenza in Laos, told Reuters.

The duck was discovered in February by researchers on a surveillance project in the area. The case was reported recently to the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).

Ducks can be carriers of the disease without showing symptoms.

Idonesia's bird flu toll jumps to 30 with five more deaths

AFP
Wednesday May 17, 2006

Indonesia's bird flu toll jumped to 30 on Wednesday after the World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed five more people had died of the virus in the world's fourth most populous nation.

The WHO said four of the confirmed deaths came from a cluster in North Sumatra: a 19 and 17-year-old male, a 29-year-old female and an 18-month old baby. A fifth person, a 25-year-old male, was infected but alive, the agency said.

"WHO is carefully investigating these cases, as any possible cluster case raises increased suspicions that human-to-human transmission may have occurred," spokeswoman Sari Setiogi told AFP.

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Warning Issued That Bird Flu Virus May Have Mutated Into Highly Contagious Human Strain

FULLERTON, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 05/15/2006 -- The recent news over the last few days of confirmed "clusters" being reported in Indonesia is posing the grim reality that the bird flu virus may have now mutated into a form that can be easily passed among humans. The current fatality rate for this particular strain of the H5N1 virus is 78% and appears to be somewhat Tamiflu resistant, which is different from the strain found in Turkey.

Once the virus has mutated, it will take 1 - 4 days before symptoms first appear because of what is known as the "incubation period." During this time frame of the initial mutation, the virus will have a chance to spread around the globe via airport travel, which will most likely result in simultaneous outbreaks around the world.

Some experts feel that this super-influenza virus will transform the world overnight into a situation resembling the New Orleans catastrophe. All deliveries to stores, restaurants and gas stations would immediately cease because people would either be too sick or too scared to attend their jobs. This would cause huge shortages in a matter of just a few days. People need to begin buying extra supplies today.

The best way to survive this super flu pandemic is to minimize contact with other people. This will require people to stay in their homes for an extended period of time. Without adequate food and water, this cannot be accomplished. In addition, if people wait too long before they begin buying extra supplies they may find that there are no supplies left to purchase.

If you would like more information on the quickly developing events, we would strongly encourage you to visit a very popular website that is attracting a lot of attention from around the world. This new website features a live discussion forum which allows people to post messages from around the world in real time conversation. This site can now be viewed at: www.Avianflutalk.com.

Indonesia probes bird flu cluster; WHO alerted

15 May 2006 14:49:51 GMT
Source: Reuters

(Adds WHO comment from Geneva)

JAKARTA, May 15 (Reuters) - Indonesia is investigating an outbreak of H5NI bird flu in up to eight members of a North Sumatran family, six of whom have died, Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono said on Monday.

Five of the eight, including four of the dead, showed positive for avian flu in local tests, while three other family members were suspected cases, the minister said.

Apriyantono added that the deadly virus had not yet been found in local poultry, which is normally the source for infections in humans.

In Geneva, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said it was following the case closely because of the possibility of human-to-human infection.

Bird flu has killed 115 people, mostly in east Asia, since reappearing in 2003, with virtually all the victims catching the disease from poultry.

The United Nations' health agency is on alert for signs that the virus is mutating into one that can be easily transmitted between people, a development that could signal the start of a pandemic in which millions could die.

"It is something we are taking very seriously," said WHO spokeswoman Maria Cheng about the Indonesian case. "Any time we have a possible cluster it raises suspicions that human-to-human transmission may have occurred," she told Reuters.

Experts have in the past said that cluster cases of possible bird flu cases among family members do not mean the virus is necessarily mutating. It could be caused by the close contact normal in families. There have been a number of such examples in Vietnam and Thailand, Cheng said.

"It may be that these people had common exposure, it may be that they caught the disease taking care of family members. Right now we do not know, but it is something that has caught our attention," she said.

Cheng said WHO hoped to know more in the next few days.

An Indonesian health ministry spokeswoman said blood samples of the five people who had tested positive locally had been sent to a WHO-affiliated laboratory in Hong Kong for confirmation. Local tests are not considered definitive.

The WHO also sent a team to North Sumatra to investigate the case, said Sari Setiogi, a spokeswoman for the agency.

"So far, an examination of chickens, ducks and pigs around the victims' houses has turned out negative," Apriyantono told reporters on the sidelines of a Food and Agriculture Organisation meeting in Jakarta. "But we still have to thoroughly investigate it as it's a complicated case." (Additional reporting by Richard Waddington in Geneva)

The Bird Flu Hunters

May 12, 2006

By Ullrich Fichtner, Ansbert Kneip and Gerald Traufetter

Bird flu has spread across the globe, but so far it poses little danger to humans. The World Health Organization has launched an ambitious project to battle the pandemic before it jumps the species barrier. The hurdles are many.

Each question about the virus triggers thousands of new questions. "We're in the middle of the problem," says Professor Yuen, a man who clearly has trouble sitting still, as he walks to the blackboard in the windowless conference room in Hong Kong's Queen Mary Hospital. The felt marker in his hand quickly glides across the surface, and within a few minutes the professor has outlined the global history of influenza in black and white. After listing annual figures, along with abbreviations identifying the different strains of the virus -- H2N2, H1N1 -- he taps the hastily written figures and, with the top edge of his glasses forming a line across his pupils, he asks: "And what do we learn from this? We learn that we know nothing, and that every calculation is taken from thin air."

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Two-week U.S. Northern Command excercises for pandemic flu outbreak

May 10, 2006
WASHINGTON -

More than 5,000 U.S. and Canadian servicemembers are working with authorities in five U.S. states and two Canadian provinces to test their response capabilities to crises ranging from a major hurricane to a terrorist attack to a pandemic flu outbreak.

Ardent Sentry 2006, a two-week U.S. Northern Command exercise, kicked off May 8 to test military support to federal, provincial, state and local authorities while continuing to support the Defense Department's homeland defense mission, according to Air Force Lt. Col. Eric Butterbaugh, a NORTHCOM and North American Aerospace Defense Command spokesman. The Canadian part of the exercise began May 1 and continues through May 12.

The goal is to give these players an opportunity to sharpen their ability to respond quickly and in a coordinated way to national crises, Butterbaugh said.

Already, active-duty, National Guard and Reserve participants operating in Colorado, Michigan, Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, the Canadian provinces of Ontario and New Brunswick and adjacent waters have gotten plenty of opportunity to do so, said Mike Kucharek, another NORTHCOM and NORAD spokesman.

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Migrating Birds Didn't Carry Flu

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
New York Times
May 11, 2006

ROME, May 10 - Defying the dire predictions of health officials, the flocks of migratory birds that flew south to Africa last fall, then back over Europe in recent weeks did not carry the deadly bird flu virus or spread it during their annual journey, scientists have concluded.

International health officials had feared that the disease was likely to spread to Africa during the southward migration and return to Europe with a vengeance during the reverse migration this spring. That has not happened - a significant finding for Europe, because it is far easier to monitor a virus that exists domestically on farms but not in the wild. "It is quiet now in terms of cases, which is contrary to what many people had expected," said Ward Hagemeijer, a bird flu specialist with Wetlands International, an environmental group based in the Netherlands that studies migratory birds.

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Bird Flu: WHO presses for quicer bird flu report.

May 6, 10:29 PM EDT

DANANG, Vietnam (AP) -- Only half the world's human bird flu cases are being reported to the World Health Organization within two weeks of being detected - a response time that must be improved to avert a pandemic, a senior WHO official said Saturday.

Dr. Shigeru Omi, WHO's regional director for the Western Pacific, said it is estimated that countries would have only two to three weeks to stamp out, or at least slow, a pandemic flu strain after it began spreading in humans.
DANANG, Vietnam (AP) -- Only half the world's human bird flu cases are being reported to the World Health Organization within two weeks of being detected - a response time that must be improved to avert a pandemic, a senior WHO official said Saturday.

Dr. Shigeru Omi, WHO's regional director for the Western Pacific, said it is estimated that countries would have only two to three weeks to stamp out, or at least slow, a pandemic flu strain after it began spreading in humans.

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China reports new outbreak of bird flu

Last Updated Fri, 05 May 2006 18:59:18 EDT
CBC News

China says there has been an outbreak of bird flu among wild birds in a remote area of Qinghai province.

The Agriculture Ministry says the outbreak was confirmed by the national bird flu laboratory, with the number of dead wild birds now at more than 120.

An outbreak of the H5N1 strain of the virus in Qinghai Lake in May 2005 killed thousands of birds.

China has reported at least 18 human bird flu infections, 12 of which have been fatal.
The reaction that occurred brought as much as four-tenths of an inch of rain, the heaviest rainfall this year, helping to "alleviate drought, add soil moisture and remove dust from the air for better air quality," Xinhua said.

Though unusual in many parts of the world, China has been tinkering with artificial rainmaking for decades, using it frequently in the drought-plagued north.

Last month, another artificial rainfall was generated to clear Beijing after the city suffered some of the fiercest dust storms this decade.

Fifth fatal human case of bird flu reported in Egypt

www.chinaview.cn 2006-05-05 03:32:39

CAIRO, May 4 (Xinhua) -- A 27-year-old Egyptian woman died of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu on Thursday, the fifth fatal human case in Egypt, the official MENA news agency reported.


Samah Abdel-Aziz Mohamed died at 3:45 p.m. (1245 GMT) after a heart resuscitation failed, the Egyptian health authorities said in a statement.

The woman, coming from el-Sharabiya district of Cairo, was the 13th human bird flu case since the outbreak of the deadly disease in Egypt in February.

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Bird flu outbreak confirmed in northwest China

www.chinaview.cn 2006-05-05 15:34:55

BEIJING, May 5 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture Friday confirmed outbreak of bird flu among wild birds in a remote area of Qinghai Province, northwest China.

The outbreak was confirmed by the national bird flu laboratory on Wednesday, and the number of dead wild bird had risen to 123 by Thursday, the ministry said on its website.

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US issues $1 billion in flu vaccine contracts

By Lisa Richwine and Maggie Fox

Reuters

May 4, 2006

WASHINGTON -
Five companies received more than $1 billion in contracts to develop
new and better influenza vaccines, and to make them on U.S. territory,
the U.S. Health and Human Services Department said on Thursday.

GlaxoSmithKline Plc was awarded $274.75 million, MedImmune Inc. was
awarded $169.46 million, Novartis AG won $220.51 million, DynPort
vaccine, working with Baxter International Inc., won $40.97 million and
Solvay won $298.59 million.

The companies will all work to develop cell-based vaccines to fight influenza.

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Mild form of avian flu found in New Jersey

Reuters

Mon May 1, 2006

NEW YORK - Authorities have discovered a mild form of avian influenza at a live bird market in New Jersey, but it is not the deadly H5N1 strain governments around the world are trying to contain, the state's agriculture department said.

"The strain was found in a live bird market in Camden County. None of the birds in the market died from this virus, which is an indicator that the virus was low pathogenic and not harmful to humans," said a statement by New Jersey's Agriculture Secretary Charles Kuperus which was posted on Friday.


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