Last minute Update on the avian flue.

Not only good news I am afraid.

For the good news:

• The two persons hospitalised a few days ago in Belgium and then France (both were coming back from Turkey) have been tested negative to the H5N1 virus.
• Tbilisi. The government of Georgia can get financial support by the international donor organizations to prevent bird flu. The World Bank and the European Union expressed their readiness to earmark USD 0,5 bl and EUR 100 000 m respectively to the international commonwealth to prevent bird flu, Zurab Noghaideli, Georgian Prime Minister told to the journalists on Monday last week. The Georgian population will be supplied with masks to prevent pandemic in case of bird flu mutation, Lado Tchipashvili, Georgian Minister of Healthcare and Welfare said at the session of the Parliamentary Healthcare and Welfare Committee.

For the bad news:

• The World Health Organisation (WHO) pressed China on Friday to provide information on a 12-year-old girl who Chinese officials say died of pneumonia, but who was initially suspected of contracting deadly bird flu.
  WHO spokeswoman, Maria Cheng, said Chinese officials had as yet provided no information on the death of the 12-year-old girl on Oct. 17 in southern Hunan province, the site of China’s latest bird flu outbreak.
  The girl’s 9-year-old brother is reported to be in a stable condition in hospital, also with pneumonia.
  Some Chinese media reports have said the girl’s body was cremated and it was unclear what samples were taken, Cheng said.“We need more clarification because both apparently had been exposed to sick chickens,” Cheng said.
• Hong Kong officials said Thursday that a dead robin had tested positive for the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus — the first such case in a year. Sit said the robin was possibly infected by migratory water birds. He said there was no evidence that the virus was spreading to Hong Kong farms. In the past year officials have collected about 9,000 wild birds and analyzed them for H5N1 infection. The last infection was found on Jan. 10, 2005, and involved a dead heron.
• And finally we found evidence that the virus is now spreading to the U.S and that, a least, one case of duck found dead, infected by the desease, was reported. A terrible picture...

Dble click to enlarge (Déjà vu..but still a good one)--->