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Canadian pigeons raise bird flu alarm in Australia

An import of Canadian racing pigeons raised the threat of bird flu last week in Australia when the virus was discovered after testing a consignment of over 100 pigeons at a Melbourne quarantine station.

30 Oct 2005

Beijing steps up the action by disinfecting poultry market

According to authorities in Beijing they have confiscated 182 wild birds from traders and started disinfecting the city's largest live poultry wholesale market against avian flu.

30 Oct 2005

WHO wants more info on bird flu from China

Following pressure from world health bodies China on Friday to provide information on the death of a 12-year-old girl, Chinese officials now say the child died of pneumonia.

30 Oct 2005

Top officials say public should not panic over bird flu

Prominent health officials and politicians are advising people not panic about a possible influenza pandemic, despite the steady spread of a deadly strain of avian flu among humans.

27 Oct 2005

Man dies of pig-borne disease in Hong Kong

According to officials in Hong Kong, tests have shown that a man who died in hospital earlier this month had the pig-borne disease Streptococcus suis.

27 Oct 2005

Global fund to tackle bird flu

The World Bank vice president, Jim Adams, says that officials from all over the world will meet in Geneva in early November to discuss setting up a global fund to tackle the threat of the deadly H5N1 avian flu virus.

27 Oct 2005

Australia furthers fight against Avian Influenza in Vietnam

Australia will provide $3 million to Vietnam to help the country combat Avian Influenza and other infectious diseases, the Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Bruce Billson, announced in Hanoi.

26 Oct 2005

"Mr Bird Flu" a convicted fraudster

In the latest in the bird flu furore it now appears that the dealer in exotic birds at the centre of Britain's first bird flu outbreak is a convicted VAT fraudster.

26 Oct 2005

25 years down the line, 1800 children daily infected with AIDS

The UN charity UNICEF, has launched a global campaign to highlight the impact on children of AIDS.

26 Oct 2005

Bird flu in Germany - Britain and Europe ban all bird imports

Following the discovery of signs of the bird flu virus in two dead migratory birds at a lake in Neuwied, Germany, a ban is shortly to be imposed on the import of all captive birds from around the world plus a ban on all bird fairs, exhibitions and shows, to protect Britain and Europe from the deadly avian flu virus.

26 Oct 2005

Most communities woefully unprepared for outbreaks of killer flu

If health officials and media prognosticators are accurate, this coming winter may bring with it one of the most sweeping, deadly outbreaks of killer flu that the world has ever seen.

25 Oct 2005

New strategies to help developing countries address neglected diseases

For the health challenges facing developing countries, the numbers alone are staggering. Every day, 40,000 people - enough to fill a sports stadium - die from preventable infectious diseases and malnutrition. Entire generations of human potential are perishing.

25 Oct 2005

Wellcome Trust awards £8.1 million to tackle tropical diseases

The Wellcome Trust, one of the world’s largest medical charities, has awarded £8.1 million over 5 years to a team of six scientists at the University of Dundee to help discover new drugs to treat some of the world’s most neglected tropical diseases.

25 Oct 2005

Twelve chickens dead from bird flu in Russia

According to a senior regional health official, another region in European Russia has confirmed an outbreak of the deadly bird flu virus H5N1.

25 Oct 2005

The tale of the dead parrot

In an effort to get to the bottom of the tale of the dead parrot it appears the saga began at Heathrow airport as far back as September.

25 Oct 2005

Circumcision shown to significantly reduce the rate of HIV infections among heterosexual men

The peer-reviewed results of the first trial of the effect of male circumcision on HIV infection, which some experts call "a landmark trial," will be published in PLoS Medicine on October 25. The trial found that circumcision reduced the rate of new infections among heterosexual men in South Africa by about 60%.

25 Oct 2005

Charting the path of the deadly Zaire strain of Ebola virus (ZEBOV) in central Africa

Over the past ten years, separate outbreaks of the deadly Zaire strain of Ebola virus (ZEBOV) have killed hundreds of humans and tens of thousands of great apes in Gabon and the Republic of Congo - which harbor roughly 80% of the last remaining wild gorilla and chimpanzee populations.

25 Oct 2005

EU considers a ban on the import of live wild birds

After confirmation that a parrot in Britain died of a virulent strain of avian flu, Britain has called for a ban on the importation of live birds.

23 Oct 2005

Bird flu found in parrot in Britain

According to the agriculture ministry in Britain, a parrot has died in quarantine and has been found to have the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu.

23 Oct 2005

Hepatitis C linked to illegal blood donation in China

Research in a rural province of central China has documented that illegal blood donation practices led to high hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection rates in blood and plasma donors during the 1980s and early 1990s, and that failure to screen for HCV in transfusion recipients increased their risk of infection as well

20 Oct 2005