Agriculture department faulted on bird flu efforts. The Agriculture Department lacks a comprehensive plan for detecting avian flu in poultry and wild birds, its inspector general's office said yesterday. [News Source]

Indonesia seeks help fighting bird flu. Indonesia appealed Wednesday for international help in fighting bird flu, warning it lacks the resources to stop an increasingly rapid spread of the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus in the country. [News Source]

High-risk flu strain not found in Canada bird. Test results indicate that a gosling from a Canadian backyard flock did not die of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu found in Asia, Europe, and Africa, officials said yesterday. [News Source]

Emergency in the emergency rooms. The plight of America's emergency rooms underscores how dreadfully unprepared we are to cope with a major disaster like pandemic influenza or mass casualties from a terrorism attack. [News Source]

Tyson chicken lab busy screening for avian flu (Fayetteville Observer) Small vials of chicken-blood serum arrive by the thousands each week in FedEx and UPS deliveries to a brick building along N.C. 268. Seven days a week, workers at the Tyson Foods laboratory conduct screening tests for avian influenza. [News Source]

Canada finds no high-risk bird flu in suspect flock (Reuters via Yahoo! News) A backyard flock of geese, ducks and chickens in Eastern Canada was not infected with the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu strain, officials said on Tuesday, dismissing fears that the strain might have arrived in North America for the first time. [News Source]

We can’t predict when bird flu will evolve into human pandemic: Chinese expert (People’s Daily) We can not predict when bird flu will evolve into a human pandemic but at present there is no evidence to show the current avian influenza virus H5N1 can be spread among humans, according to a Chinese expert. [News Source]

H5N1 Vaccine Could Be Basis For Life-saving Stockpile Against Possible Bird Flu Outbreak (Science Daily) Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have announced that a vaccine they developed a few years ago against one antigenic variant of the avian influenza virus H5N1 may protect humans against future variants of the virus. [News Source]