India To Claim Bird Flu Free Status Next Month (Bernama) NEW DELHI, July 29 (Bernama) -- India will claim a "bird flu free nation" status next month, as there has been no case of avian influenza reported in the country for the last three months, Press Trust of India reported Friday quoting the Federal Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar as saying. [News Source]

Wild Birds Can Spread Benign Avian Flu Strain to Humans (Fox News) A study of duck hunters in Iowa is believed to be the first to show people can catch a non-threatening strain of bird flu from wild birds. [News Source]

Avian flu strikes again in Laos (CIDRAP) Jul 28, 2006 (CIDRAP News) – Laos has reported its first major outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza in more than 2 years, on a poultry farm in an area bordering part of Thailand that has recently been hit by the disease. [News Source]

India to claim bird flu-free status next month (New Kerala) New Delhi: India has complied with all protocols necessary for being notified bird flu-free, and hopes to receive the certification from OIE, the international animal health agency, on Aug 10, a senior official said here Friday. [News Source]

Asian officials make pact to tackle bird flu (Reuters via Yahoo! News) Asian countries hit by bird flu made plans on Friday to join forces to fight the H5N1 virus, which killed a teenager in Thailand and was found in chickens in Laos this week. [News Source]

Asia vows to combine efforts to fight bird flu (Khaleej Times) NEW DELHI - Bird flu-hit Asian countries vowed on Friday to unite to fight the deadly virus and said they recognised the need to better coordinate efforts between health and farm agencies at national level. [News Source]

More notice about spraying urged. Whether they agreed with spraying pesticides to slow West Nile virus, residents and members of the Davis City Council on Tuesday strongly urged more notice from mosquito-control officials before it takes action. [News Source]

Wild birds can spread bird flu to people. A study of duck hunters in Iowa is believed to be the first to show people can catch bird flu - a non-threatening kind - from wild birds. [News Source]

Laos reports H5N1 bird flu outbreak. Laos has confirmed an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu among chickens at a farm near the capital Vientiane, a foreign ministry spokesman said Friday. [News Source]

Big gain foreseen in bird-flu vaccine. GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C. has developed a bird-flu vaccine that may be more effective and plentiful than anything else invented so far, the company and vaccine experts said yesterday. [News Source]

Bird flu: On border patrol. The United States has embarked on a huge effort to try to track the H5N1 avian flu virus in birds migrating into the country. But is surveillance more urgently needed elsewhere? [News Source]

H5N1 bird flu found on poultry farm in Laos (AFP via Yahoo! News) An outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed more than 2,000 chicken on a poultry farm in Laos, the government and UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said. [News Source]