Bird flu experts throng (Herald Sun) THE world's leading disease detectives have gathered in a remote village in Indonesia to investigate the largest set of deaths from bird flu yet. Six members of a family on a remote Sumatran island died of avian influenza in the past three weeks. [News Source]

PanAfrica: FAO/OIE Conference to Tackle Bird Flu Controversy (AllAfrica.com) How far wild birds are to blame for spreading highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), or bird flu, will be the key issue at a scientific conference organized here on May 30-31 by FAO and OIE, the World Organisation for Animal Health. [News Source]

Preparing for pandemic. As government plans for a possible global flu pandemic, it's ducking one of the hardest questions: Who gets vaccinated first? [News Source]

Petri dish certified. The new good-for-you meat won't be pork or grass-fed beef, and it won't be made of soy. If scientists succeed, it will taste and look like old-fashioned meat — only it'll be raised in a lab, not on a farm. [News Source]

‘Worrisome’ cluster of flu cases studied. A team of World Health Organization experts has been deployed to help investigate what is being termed "a worrisome" family cluster of human cases of avian influenza in northern Indonesia, organization officials said Wednesday. [News Source]

Bird flu deaths spark human infection fear. Seven out of eight members of the same family who contracted bird flu have died from the disease in what the World Health Organisation describes as the "most worrying incident so far". [News Source]

WHO alarmed at bird flu cases in Indonesia. The World Health Organisation said yesterday it was "alarmed" by a cluster of bird flu cases in Indonesia that showed every sign of having been spread from one human to another. [News Source]

Bird flu fears ignite debate on scientists’ sharing of data. A struggle has emerged between experts who believe the latest genetic data on the H5N1 bird flu virus should be made public immediately and others who fear that such a policy would alienate the countries collecting virus samples and the scientists analyzing them. [News Source]

Bird flu in Indonesian family may raise global alert level. The World Health Organization might soon convene an expert panel to decide whether an unprecedented human outbreak of bird flu in Indonesia should trigger a higher global alert for a possible pandemic. [News Source]

Bird flu deaths don’t raise alarm. While the virus apparently spread from one person to another, tests find no evidence that it is a form capable of spreading easily and causing widespread global illness. [News Source]

Bird flu seems to have taken deadly new step in Indonesia. Six family members in Indonesia who died of bird flu probably infected one another after a seventh apparently contracted it from birds, which may mean it can more efficiently spread among humans. [News Source]

Interior: Swans likely 1st to get bird flu. A deadly bird flu virus will likely slip into the United States through a pretty package: either majestic swans flying across the Bering Strait into Alaska or from smuggled exotic wildlife at one of the nation's ports. [News Source]