Bird flu 2012

• In a secure laboratory built to contain harmful pathogens, Fouchier took the H5N1 bird flu virus and mutated it, through some worryingly simple steps, into an airborne strain that spread swiftly among ferrets in neighbouring cages.
(The Guardian)
• A confirmed case of H5N1 avian influenza in Egypt has taken the life of a woman from Dakahlia Governorate according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
(Examiner)
• NEW YORK -- The U.S. governments biosecurity advisers said Friday they support publishing research studies showing how scientists made new easy-to-spread forms of bird flu because the studies, now revised, dont reveal details bioterrorists could use.
(Huffington Post)
• JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A 17-year-old has died of bird flu in Indonesia. He is the countrys sixth fatality from the virus so far this year.
(Houston Chronicle)
• A government advisory committee has reconsidered its advice to keep certain details of bird flu experiments secret. Revised versions of manuscripts that describe two recent studies can be openly published, the committee now says.
(NPR News)
• Scientists, security experts, flu virologists and others are arguing over whether the details of experiments with lab-altered forms of bird flu can be made public, or whether that would amount to publishing the recipe for a superflu that could be used as a bioweapon.
(NPR News)
• The pro-Hanoi Vietcong began a guerrilla campaign in the late 1950s to overthrow Diems government, which an official Vietcong statement described as a disguised colonial regime.
(Worldnews.com)
• While several countries around the world perform details genetic analyses of both the H5N1 strain and other influenza viruses that could contribute to a new pandemic, on a global scale the flu surveillance is in dire shape, reported Nature.
(Scientist)
• KATHMANDU, March 19 (Xinhua) -- After the confirmation of bird flu avian influenza in a farm in the Nepali capital Kathmandu, the alert level among the residents of Kathmandu has been elevated.
(Xinhua News Agency)
• One thing that's fascinated me about the ongoing debate about the manipulated bird flu (check out my pieces for Slate, the Loom, and the Times for background) is that it comes down, in large part, to information.
(DISCOVER)