Schools told to prepare for bird flu
A pandemic will strike New Zealand and schools need to be preparing for it now, the Ministry of Education's pandemic planning manager said today. ...Graeme Marshall told the annual meeting of the New Zealand Education Institute there was a high risk of bird flu becoming a pandemic that would strike New Zealand, and it could kill between 30-50,000 people.
"We will get a pandemic at some stage. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when. However, there's no need to panic because an awful lot of us won't die. Something over four million (New Zealanders) won't die."
Not panicking was imperative. People needed to remember the pandemic would pass and life would go on, Mr Marshall said.
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Bird Flu Claims Indonesia's 52nd Victim
The 23-year-old man was the 52nd victim of bird flu in Indonesia. "According to the symptoms, we suspect that they are a new cluster (of the bird flu virus)," said the head of environmental health department at West Java office. ...If it is proved to be a new cluster, there are at least three clusters of bird flu as it continues its spread across Indonesia. The first case was in Tangerang and the second in Tanah Karo, North Sumatra. ...Although a laboratory test has not yet been conducted, the symptoms indicate that the two brothers suffered from pneumonia and a high fever.
The country's 51st victim is a 9-year-old boy, Fajarianto, from South Jakarta. He spent three days being treated at Sulianti Saroso Hospital. A health ministry official has confirmed that Fajar was positive for bird flu and died after he first revealed the symptoms of the virus nine days before. ...Meanwhile in North Sumatra, five members of a family were sent to the Adam Malik Hospital in Medan after all of them were suspected of having the bird flu virus. Two of them were released on Monday but another died on the same day. ...The ministry officials could not record the victim because the cause of the death remains unclear. Reports showed that unusual chicken deaths had hit within one kilometer of the family's house.
As the dry season is still running in Indonesia it is difficult to detect bird flu because many victims are children, and they often suffer from high fevers and breathing difficulties at this time of year. The doctors have often missed the diagnosis as happened in the case of the 23-year-old man. ...Initially, the doctors who gave medical treatment believed that this man was just suffering from ordinary flu. For this reason the adequate medical treatment for the bird flu virus was not given.
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Health officials said Tuesday they were examining [www.thejakartapost.com...]possible intra-human transmission of bird flu in West Java[/url], where a hospitalized 20-year-old male resident of Bandung tested positive for the virus.
His 23-year-old brother had died Sunday afternoon before he could be taken to hospital for testing. Their sister, aged 15, was admitted to the hospital Monday night after developing a fever and cough.
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Ministry of Health officials and World Health Organisation (WHO) staff said on Wednesday that a case of H5N1 (avian flu) in birds was detected in a house near Aswan, in Upper Egypt.
This year, Egypt suffered the worst outbreak of avian flu outside Asia. The disease was largely brought under control, although fears remained of a new outbreak. ...Fourteen human cases of bird flu have been found in Egypt since mid-March, al-Bushra said. Of these, six have died. The last was a 75-year-old woman who died on 18 May.
"Until the last virus is eradicated, the risk continues to exist," said al-Bushra.
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Bracing for Bird Flu: Putnam authorities strategizing for possibility of pandemic
State and federal health officials are offering different opinions on the potential of the most deadly form of “bird flu” reaching the United States, according to Palatka General Services Director Ken Venables. ...“It depends on whom you ask,” Venables said. “Some are saying it might come and it might not. Others are saying ‘it’s coming,’ we just don’t know where and how hard it’s going to hit.”
Now that Venables has his own phone, he might be better able to prepare Palatka for a possible pandemic. ...The city’s general services director since this spring, Venables shared an office until last week in the City Hall Annex Building, where he now he has his own space. ...Venables is also the city safety officer and risk manager, and says he can coordinate those duties better now that he has private space.
“Experts are saying to expect to lose up to half of your employees, either by being incapacitated or dying,” Venables said.
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EU on bird flu alert
Europe is on alert to protect poultry from bird flu this autumn but must work harder to avoid another slump in meat sales should the virus strike, a top veterinary official said on Wednesday.
Over the next month, billions of birds will begin their seasonal migration to African wintering grounds, raising fears the deadly Asian H5N1 bird flu strain could return to Europe.
From the Better Late Than Never file:
eGene says they now have a sensitive mass screening test, to test chickens
for H5N1 bird flu.
the sample analysis rate in the HDA system is approximately two samples per minute, so a total of 96 samples in a 96-well plate can be analyzed in 50 minutes.
And in the USA, Forbes blows off the data showing H5N1 bird flu is most dangerous to young people.
While in Canada, Ontario's public health info system - designed to track disease outbreaks - overlooks native Indians.
Oh yeah, in case you were wondering: UN’s Influenza Pandemic Task Force meets for the first time; will play advisory role
I do agree. 
