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New Romanian Flu Outbreak Beyond Danube Delta

Sanitary-veterinary workers take domestic gooses from the courtyard of a local people to be killed and incinerated in the village of Scarlatesti, 250km northeastern Bucharest, 27 November 2005. A turkey has been found with the H5 strain of bird flu at Scarlatesti, and authorities were due to begin slaughtering poultry in the area today. A total of 15,000 birds will be killed and incinerated, with owners receiving payments to compensate their losses. AFP photo by Daniel Mihailescu.

Washington (UPI) Nov 28, 2005
Romania has reported its first case of avian influenza found outside the Danube Delta. The turkey, which was infected with an H5 strain of avian-flu, was found in Scarlatesti, in the eastern part of the country, during random tests of poultry.

Samples from the bird are being tested to establish whether it died from the H5N1 strain prevalent in Southeast Asia.

As the village is isolated, and about 2 miles from any other inhabited area, the flu containment measures will not be large-scale. Instead the village has been quarantined, residents were given flu-shots Sunday, and as many as 17,000 birds have been culled.

Meanwhile:

-- Aid workers and health officials in Indonesia are concerned by the large-scale deaths of birds from avian influenza in the province of Aceh.

Although it is not the first area of Indonesia to suffer an avian-flu outbreak, there are still thousands of Acehnese made homeless by the 2004 tsunami who are living in close quarters in refugee camps in the region.

The conditions in refugee camps make them the ideal breeding grounds for a pandemic should human-to-human transmission occur.

-- Also in Indonesia, two further suspected cases of avian influenza in humans have been hospitalized and are in intensive care.

Confirmation of their status is awaiting test results from the World Health Organization, but the 25-year-old woman tested positive in initial tests taken last week. The man, aged 37, is only a suspected case.

-- A 61-year-old Malaysian man believed to be ill with avian influenza was confirmed Sunday to be free of the disease, and is instead believed to be suffering from a lung infection.

The man reported flu-like symptoms and respiratory difficulties five days after returning from a visit to China with his family.

Malaysia has not yet seen an incident of bird-flu in humans.

-- Taiwan announced Sunday that it will continue with the generic production of the anti-viral Tamiflu despite being denied a license by Roche, the Swiss manufacturers.

"We have to prepare enough Tamiflu to protect our people in case of a bird flu outbreak, so mass production is scheduled for next year. But we would only use the locally produced drugs if the Tamiflu we bought from Roche were not enough," Liao Chi-chou, director of the Bureau of Pharmaceutical Affairs for Taiwan's Department of Health said.

Taiwanese production of Tamiflu is intended as a fail-safe for its population, and the government has not ruled out the possibility of compensating Roche should generic versions of the drug be dispensed.

-- Shanghai has announced that it will begin screening international passengers for bird flu from Monday.

International travelers entering and leaving China through Shanghai International Airport will be asked to fill out a health declaration form stating whether or not they have had contact with birds, with people exhibiting symptoms of bird flu or have suffered any flu-like symptoms.

Travelers with high temperatures will be subjected to further examination and questioning, and those who have been in affected areas or come into contact with birds will be sent to hospital for treatment.

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Bird Flu Vaccine Won't Precede Pandemic
Washington (UPI) Nov 28, 2005
As fears mount over a future flu pandemic, one scary truth remains: the world is without a vaccine. This is because scientists need a flu virus in hand to completely formulate its preventive treatment.







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