Aichi to declare bird flu epidemic over on Sunday, governor says (The Japan Times) NAGOYA (Kyodo) The Aichi Prefectural Government will declare the end of a two-month bird flu epidemic in Toyohashi at midnight Sunday, Gov. Masaaki Kanda said Thursday. A ban on moving quail, eggs and other products from farms in the area will be lifted, prefectural officials said. No new flu cases have been detected since March 29. Read the full story [News Source]

Mild bird flu identified in US breeding hens (Food Navigator USA) A Tennessee flock of 15,000 breeder hens has been culled after tests revealed a mild strain of avian influenza. The birds, which were being raised under contract for Tyson Foods, showed no signs of illness and there was no threat to human health, said the company. [News Source]

The trouble with Tamiflu. The companies behind the two leading anti-flu drugs are making millions out of the crisis. But just how effective are their products? [News Source]

Swine flu shows need for better animal testing. As the global panic subsides, scientists will focus on figuring out how to ward off the next emerging disease before it lands on our doorstep. One way to start would be to trace how, when and where the H1N1 virus emerged from pigs into people [News Source]

New virus, old tale: Animals share bugs with us. Somewhere out there, somewhere along the way, a single creature got all this started. A pig, presumably. Pig Zero. Scientists suspect that two influenza viruses common in swine, one rooted in Eurasia and the other in North America, came together in a single cell within a pig. [News Source]

Most of any swine flu vaccines could be claimed by rich nations’ preexisting contracts. Although no final decision has been made to produce a vaccine against the new strain of swine flu, officials at WHO say that "pre-production contracts" by wealthy countries that may lay claim to substantial quantities of any that is made. [News Source]

U F biologists explore origins of swine flu. A team from the University of Florida has joined a group of world experts on evolutionary biology to explore how the swine-flu virus originated. The biologists have opened their work-in-progress to each other and the public through a Web site. [News Source]

Is Google any help in tracking an epidemic? Since last fall, the search-engine giant Google has been nurturing a spin-off service called Google Flu Trends, which aims to identify outbreaks by tracking searches for flu-related terms and provide health officials with early warnings of potential epidemics. [News Source]

The new diseases of our own making. From swine flu to mad cow to HIV-AIDS, the Age of Ecodemics has arrived. We should remember how we are creating many of these diseases. You can't get swine flu from eating pork, but you can get it from live pigs. When pigs get the flu they cough and sneeze. [News Source]

SARS sleuth tracks swine flu, attacks WHO. Yi Guan has plenty of experience at ground zero of an epidemic. In spring 2003, the virologist isolated the SARS virus in China's Guangdong Province. Now, Guan expresses his views regarding WHO's slow response to the H1N1 emergency. [News Source]

Mild bird flu identified in US breeding hens (Food Production Daily) A Tennessee flock of 15,000 breeder hens has been culled after tests revealed a mild strain of avian influenza. The birds, which were being raised under contract for Tyson Foods, showed no signs of illness and there was no threat to human health, said the company. [News Source]