CDC Finds Some Bird Flu Strains Have Acquired Properties That Might Enhance Potential To Infect Humans (Medical News Today) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released results of a study suggesting that some North American avian influenza A H7 virus strains have properties that might enhance their potential to infect humans as well as their potential to spread from human to human. The study was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. [News Source]

H7 Bird Flu Increasing Potential To Infect And Spread Among Humans Reports CDC (Medical News Today) A type of avian flu that is common in birds and rarely caught by humans, the North American Avian H7 influenza virus, is acquiring transmission properties similar to human influenza, according to a new study by US researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), based in Atlanta. [News Source]

Tests of new bird-flu vaccine show promise, scientists say. The first experimental bird-flu vaccine made from lab-grown cells instead of chicken eggs shows promise in blocking the highly lethal virus, scientists report. [News Source]

Hong Kong widens search for bird flu source (AP via Yahoo! Philippines News) Health officials converged on poultry farms and markets across Hong Kong on Thursday as they struggled to find the source of the territory's worst bird flu threat in years. [News Source]

Hong Kong widens search for bird flu source (AP via Yahoo! Malaysia News) Health officials converged on poultry farms and markets across Hong Kong on Thursday as they struggled to find the source of the territory's worst bird flu threat in years. [News Source]

Hong Kong widens search for bird flu source (AP via Yahoo! Singapore News) Health officials converged on poultry farms and markets across Hong Kong on Thursday as they struggled to find the source of the territory's worst bird flu threat in years. [News Source]

Bird Flu / Asian Flu / H5N1 (PharmiWeb) What is Bird Flu? Avian Influenza is a form of influenza carried by birds, yet may infect several species of mammals. It is known to exist worldwide yet was first identified in the early 1900's in Italy. These virus's are composed of the Influenza A genus and are a segmented RNA virus. [News Source]

Progress on bird flu vaccine (Baltimore Sun) Researchers report new method that cuts production time in half Researchers are reporting preliminary success with a vaccine against a possible "bird flu" pandemic, using a process they say could deliver the product in half the time required by older technology. [News Source]