Schools told to prepare for bird flu. The nation's schools, recognized incubators of respiratory diseases among children, are being told to plan for the possibility of an outbreak of bird flu. [News Source]

Bird flu plans unfold in U.S.. HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and outgoing Interior Secretary Gale Norton presented a joint update on national preparedness, covering bird testing, poultry industry protections, vaccine development and the status of state and local emergency planning. [News Source]

Bird flu on hospital specialists’ agenda. With rising numbers of birds and humans abroad infected with a deadly form of the H5N1 virus, U.S. hospitals need to get ready now, a federal bird flu expert said Tuesday at a meeting of epidemiologists in Chicago. [News Source]

Officials note Alaska’s role in bird flu detection. As migrating birds return to Alaska this spring, the state will become a focal point in federal efforts to detect the arrival of a potent form of bird flu on U.S. shores. [News Source]

Bird flu mutation ‘adds to threat of pandemic.’ The virus that causes bird flu has split into two distinct genetic subgroups, widening the gene pool from which a form that could trigger a human pandemic might evolve. [News Source]

Human death toll from bird flu at 103. The human death toll from the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu reached 103 after five people died from the disease in Azerbaijan, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. [News Source]

Is yesterday’s swine flu today’s bird flu? Despite the fact that the bird flu virus H5N1 remains essentially a bird disease, Anthony Fauci, esteemed director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says we need to make more than 100 million doses of a vaccine for H5N1. [News Source]